TheannaTheWhite's Stalker Zero
by BobBQ
Summary: [Reupload, updated] Failing the Springtime Familiar Summoning was fate for Louise de la Valliére, but nothing could have prepared her for the consequences. While Tristain becomes a twisted shadow of its former self, Louise finds herself in a world where nearly everything is out to kill her and the fabric of reality has been warped beyond recognition. Welcome to the Zone, Louise.
1. Humble Beginnings I

**Uploader's note:** I take no credit for this story's creation, only its preservation.

I recently learned that TheannaTheWhite's account was apparently compromised and all stories deleted. Since TTW's whereabouts are unknown, I've taken it on myself to restore this work from my offline archive. Unfortunately my copy doesn't incorporate the later refinements to early chapters. Also be warned that the formatting was somewhat mangled in conversion: I fixed what I could find, but I probably missed some.

TheannaTheWhite's original author's notes are reproduced in italics, usually at chapter ends.

 **Update Dec 8th:** TheannaTheWhite has begun working on the story again. See the last chapter for details.

* * *

 _Humble Beginnings I_

 _Zaton_

 _13:42_

The marshlands of Zaton had never been the easiest region in the Zone to traverse. In the winter it was merely covered in snow, but in the spring the muck began to thaw, resulting in a consistently muddy terrain where deep bodies of water once stood.

So it wasn't that unusual to see a stalker enter the Skadovsk with their legs brown up to their knees while they grumbled about the 'stupid mud' outside. The Skadovsk had been a cargo ship before the waters in the Zaton River had drained, leaving her to rust in the mud in an eerie graveyard. Even if the water decided to return in full force one day, the Skadovsk would remain where she stood; the hull was peeled open like a tin can.

Considered the only relatively safe place in Zaton, the Skadovsk was usually a hive of activity. Stalkers came and went at all times of the day, dropping in to trade off scavenged equipment, artifacts, or to simply have a drink and relax.

Today, the Skadovsk was unusually vacant. The bartender was the sole occupant. A heavy-set man, who went by the name of Beard, sat on a stool with a swiveling seat. Bored by the lack of activity, he used a foot to idly rotate himself left and right. He had no doubts the upper levels of the ship were occupied. The rat-faced trader Owl almost never left the ship, and the perpetually intoxicated Cardan could usually be found in the same spot upstairs, offering to repair anybody's equipment for a bottle of vodka or a wad of cash.

Beard had no interests in talking to either of the men, so he simply remained alone in the silent bar. It seemed like it was going to stay that way, until the groaning of aged metal told him that the door was being opened. Leaning forward slightly, Beard watched as a lone stalker entered the bowels of the ship and made straight for him, a canvas bag swinging at their side. He smiled, seeing company approaching and money to be made.

The stalker stopped in front of the bar and gently set the bag down. They peeled back their hood and pulled down the cloth covering the lower half of their face, revealing bright blue eyes and matted black hair, greasy from days without a proper wash. The stalker before him was new around Zaton, and was also the only female he had seen in the area, a fact that was made evident by the slight bulge in the chest of her sunrise suit. Beard knew better than to assume she was a novice. If she had made all the way into Zaton she had to have some amount of competency.

She set an old Mosin-Nagant rifle against the bar. The girl placed her elbows down on the bar top, and rested her chin in her hands. A bright smile crossed her face.

Beard decided to speak first with a touch of laughter in his voice. "So, you have something interesting I guess?"

The girl nodded and removed what she had been carrying from the bag. The object looked to have been a steering wheel of sorts at some point. It sat on the bar top emanating a dull blue glow. A portion of the wheel seemed to have developed a growth that twitched and swayed about occasionally, almost as if were living. For all Beard knew the thing could have actually been alive.

Beard eyed the object with a blank face. "What is this?"

"Don't know." The girl shrugged. Beard knew he wouldn't get much of an explanation out of her. As nice as she seemed, she barely spoke any Ukrainian, Russian, or any of the other common languages in the area. What little she managed to speak was heavily accented, leading Beard to believe she was a foreigner.

Beard contemplated. This 'altered wheel' would definitely fetch a good price with his clients outside of the Zone, even if it was merely a curiosity. "I'll give you twenty-five hundred."

The girl shook her head and held up three fingers. Beard laughed at the girl's simple response. "Fine, fine, three thousand it is then, but only because you've been a great artifact hunter so far."

Smiling, the girl accepted her payment. She may not have understood Beard completely but she knew a compliment when she heard one. She hefted her rifle up into her arms and nodded a farewell.

* * *

Louise de la Valliére awoke feeling like she had been hit by a ton of bricks. Her eyes shot open, and then just as quickly slammed shut when the sunlight proved too much for her retinas to handle in a singular dose. She placed a hand on her forehead and groaned. Her head felt like it was about to split open.

From what Louise could gather with her eyes closed, she was laying on her back somewhere outside. The sun was bright, shining through her eyelids with a red hue, and there was a breeze blowing over her that carried a piercing chill with it.

The only thing troubling her more than her pounding head was having no recollection of recent memory. She didn't even remember waking up that morning and getting out of bed, but she must have, because she felt fairly certain she was fully dressed.

Tentatively cracking her eyelids apart, she took in the visage of a clear sky with reeds and cattails swinging lazily in the breeze at the edges of her vision. Deciding that she had best stand up instead of lying in the dirt, Louise rose to a sit. This proved to be a grave mistake, because her stomach suddenly started doing nauseating flips. She draped an arm across her stomach and a hand over her mouth, with silent prayers that she wouldn't vomit.

Looking herself over as her churning stomach began to settle, she thankfully discovered that she was indeed fully dressed in her school uniform, a simple black skirt, a white long-sleeved blouse, and a long black cloak that was keeping most of her body from actually touching the ground. Satisfied that she hadn't woken up outdoors wearing only her nightclothes, Louise began to take stock of her surroundings.

She was in a marsh, or perhaps it was a swamp. Not being the outdoors type, Louise wasn't completely sure of the difference. All she knew was that both were wet, both had plants, and both were surely unpleasant places to be. In whatever way she was brought here, she was grateful she hadn't woken up in the small body of water only a few feet away.

Deciding to stand up to try and get a better view over the tall plants, Louise carefully rose to her feet, afraid she might upset her strangely uneasy stomach once more. The pounding in her head didn't seem willing to abate any time soon. Dismay flowed through her when she saw that the area was indeed rather wet, full of plants, and looked very unpleasant. Surely the place was full of dreadful insects that would assault her in force at any moment.

Out of everything that existed in the physical world, Louise hated insects the most.

Remembering Kirche von Zerbst, she took that thought back and decided that insects were probably fifth on the list of things she hated most. Kirche was definitely at the top, and she wasn't really sure on the other three yet, but they were there nonetheless.

The thought of her classmate caused a few memories to come rushing back. She had gotten up that morning, she was sure of it. Today was the day she was supposed to take part in the Springtime Familiar Summoning. Her mouth fell open when she realized that she wasn't going to make it to the ceremony, if it hadn't already happened.

Then a rather horrifying thought struck her. Maybe she had performed the ceremony, and had subsequently failed so badly that the result was her ending up here in the middle of nowhere. If that was actually the case, then it certainly hadn't gone as well as she'd hoped.

But wasn't that impossible? The Springtime Familiar Summoning was designed to bring a creature to her, where it would be bound to dutifully serve her throughout her life as a mage. This wasn't supposed to happen. This was all wrong. It was backwards!

All around her the land sloped upward. Some areas gradually rose, while others were steep embankments. The area she was standing in must have been the bottom of a substantial body of water at some point. In the distance she noticed a hulking structure. It had the vague shape of something that would float on water, but it wasn't like any ship she had ever seen before. It was massive, and seemed to be permanently immobile from the lack of a large enough body of water for it to move on. If the place hadn't been completely abandoned simply because of how dreadful it looked, maybe there were people there. She sincerely doubted that, but at least she may be able to see more from up high on the deck of the ship. She needed to find out where she was, she needed to get back to Tristain, back to the Academy, and then...

And then she'd probably be expelled from the school for failing one of the most important exams in the curriculum.

Louise sighed heavily. Her mother would be angry with her, that was for sure, but all the same she knew that she wouldn't be yelled at or scolded. Her mother didn't do that sort of thing. Instead, she would just be fixed with a silent stare that would make her feel as significant as a water flea. She had seen that stare before, and she knew that this time it would be much worse. This was the final confirmation anybody needed to prove that she was an absolute failure.

Her eldest sister Éléonore would be the one to do the yelling. That was how Éléonore worked. Louise would be scolded by her sister for hours while her cheeks were reddened by constant and annoying pinches. The middle sister of the family, Cattleya, wouldn't stare silently or yell. Instead, she would smile softly with sadness in her eyes while she told Louise that she still had a chance and everything would be fine.

Louise put all of those thoughts aside. Right now she had to properly take charge of her situation like a Noble should.

About to take a step, Louise froze when she heard the reeds rustle off to her side. Her confidence and pride seemed to drop right out from underneath her as a nervous pit formed in her stomach. Slowly turning her head, her eyes went wide.

Whatever was standing only a dozen meters away was shaped like a human, except for its face. Large, black eyes with an elongated face greeted her vision. She quickly came to realize that the long face was actually some sort of horrendous mask sticking out from underneath a hood. She slowly scanned over the strangest assortment of clothing she had ever seen, before her eyes settled on something even more disturbing than the mask.

A gun. A big and ugly gun.

The combination of wood and steel was unmistakable, although it didn't look like any musket she had seen before. Louise's hand went to her side, searching desperately for her wand.

Louise paled, realizing she no longer had possession of said wand.

The masked individual had seen Louise's motion and had quickly brought their weapon up to bear, leveling it straight at the frightened girl. Louise's stomach twisted, not in nausea, but in cold fear. This was the first time she had ever been presented with the barrel of a loaded firearm, and she wasn't enjoying the experience one bit. Staring into the maw of the metal tube was staring straight into the face of death itself.

Louise immediately brought her hands up to show that she meant no harm. She began to take small steps backwards as her eyes darted about desperately for an escape from this situation. Her heel caught on an inconveniently placed rock, bringing her back down onto her bottom and into a murky puddle of water.

"N-no, please!" Louise sputtered, throwing her hands out in front of herself like they could stop bullets. The person advanced on her, lowering their weapon as they came within a few feet. "I-I-I'm just lost! D-don't hurt me please! I..."

Louise trailed off as she heard the muffled sound of what was unmistakably laughter. The person suddenly crouched down, and rested the butt of their weapon on the ground. The laughter sounded light, feminine even. Taking note of the bulge in the chest area, Louise quickly determined that there must have been a woman behind the mask.

Her thoughts were proven to be true when the mask came off to reveal a rather pretty face, with shining blue eyes and black hair. The smile playing at the woman's lips indicated that she had indeed been laughing.

The woman spoke, laughter still in her voice. "You're sitting in a puddle."

"I..." Louise looked down, at a loss for words. "...What?"

"I said, you're sitting in a puddle," the woman repeated.

"You're..." Louise began, her mouth hanging slightly agape. "Laughing at me?"

The woman smiled a cat-like grin, biting at her lip before ignoring Louise's question. "I honestly didn't think I'd ever see one of you people again. It feels good to finally be able to speak Tristainian to somebody."

"Who... are you?" Louise asked, studying the woman's face.

Her smile widened. "You can call me, Siesta."

* * *

 _Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed. I've been lurking around the Familiar of Zero archives for some time now, and I've finally decided to publish something. I always thought that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe would be an interesting one to combine with FoZ, but if it were a Louise summons X story then it wouldn't be much different than any other Louise summons X story where X happens to have a gun and a troubling past._

 _Besides, I wanted to write a story which centered on Louise and her loss of innocence. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. seems like a good medium to me. If any of you have played the games then you know how dangerous and unforgiving the Zone can be._

 _Anyways, updates will be random because of work and other things, so drop a review and I'll get back to you with chapter two as soon as I can._


	2. Humble Beginnings II

_Humble Beginnings II_

 _Zaton_

 _14:12_

"Honestly, where are we going?"

Siesta stared straight ahead as she walked. She was already thoroughly annoyed at this little pink-haired demon following her, and had begun to consider if this was a mistake or not. She had things planned for today, things that didn't involve this headache. "I told you I'd explain everything at the Skadovsk didn't it? So we're obviously going to the Skadovsk."

"Yes but where is the Ska... Sk –" Louise let out a frustrated growl. "Where is it!?" Siesta didn't seem particularly inclined to respond.

Louise glared at the back of the head in front of her. This 'Siesta' person had already grated heavily on her nerves. She simply referred to Louise as 'Noble Girl' instead of Milady, or Miss, or even by her actual name. The woman spoke Tristainian fluently, so Louise immediately assumed that her classmates must have cast a sleeping spell on her and simply placed her somewhere strange while they forced a servant to dress up in some strange clothing to convince her that was somewhere very far away.

While that would have been greatly annoying, it would have been much better than actually being stuck in a strange place very far from Tristain. As the strange husk of the ship neared, Louise was slowly beginning to think her classmates had nothing to do with this.

"It's that ship," Siesta finally said after heaving an annoyed sigh. She pointed ahead to the nearing steel structure.

"That thing?" Louise gawked at the sight. "Are there people there? I don't like the look of it." She looked to her side, catching something in the corner of her eye between the marsh plants and withering shrubs. "There's another one!"

Siesta glanced in the direction Louise had turned her head with an uninterested hum. "Oh, yeah. That's the Shevchenko."

Louise let her eyes linger on the ship for only a few moments. The approaching Skadovsk and the Shevchenko were both strange looking ships with even stranger names. Wincing as the mud squelched beneath her shoes, Louise continued forward.

They entered the ship through a gaping section of open hull. Louise looked up, seeing sky through missing sections of deck. The ship seemed to be made entirely of metal, which bewildered Louise, because she hadn't heard of a ship being made entirely out of metal before. Everything around her seemed to have rusted to a disgusting degree. She found herself being led to a thick metal door.

"So, are there actually people here?" Louise asked again. Her question was promptly ignored as Siesta worked the door's lever and pulled it outward. Louise frowned as the metal groaned in protest, and frowned even more so as the odor of tobacco smoke and the sounds of drunken laughter reached her ears. Siesta had brought her to a tavern in a rusty old ship.

Louise's eyebrow twitched in agitation. A tavern of all places! For the love of the Founder, she was a Noblewoman! She couldn't just go into a tavern on the heels of some commoner.

"Come on. We'll be safe in here." Siesta motioned for Louise to step through the doorway. "At least... well, mostly safe. Uh, yeah, it'll be fine."

Louise's eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It's supposed to mean get inside so I can shut the damn door."

Louise didn't move, but her expression twisted. "Now I've had just about enough out of you, commoner." She pointed dangerously. "Don't you realize who you're talking to? The gall of you. I should have you-"

The pink-haired girl was quite surprised to find Siesta cutting her off with a dismissive flap of her hand. "Right, right," Siesta drawled, sounding bored. "If you don't want to come in then fine, don't come in, but I'm going in, so if you want to just stay out here in the cold by yourself, then fine, go for it."

Louise mustered up the darkest and most intimidating glare she could manage. It didn't have her intended effect, however. Siesta merely stood with the same bored look on her face while she waited for Louise to move. Louise's hands balled into angry fists as she silently conceded to Siesta's unspoken point. She was alone here and had no idea where she was. She needed help, help that Siesta seemed to be offering.

As if her thoughts had been mirrored, Siesta spoke up with growing impatience at the edges of her voice. "Listen, I want to help you, alright? This is seriously the only safe place for miles, and if we leave the door open any longer we're going to get yelled at."

Resigning herself, Louise's shoulders slumped as she reluctantly moved forward and stepped through the doorway. Inside, she ground to a quick stop. The room was a fair size, full of old tables and chairs with a bar at the far end. People sat or stood about smoking and drinking, some wearing strange outfits similar to Siesta's while others seemed to prefer well-worn clothes and long coats. Firearms lay scattered about the room, leaning against walls and tables and hanging from the sides and backs of nearly everybody. Louise had initially thought Siesta's gun had looked kind of strange, but the guns she saw in here were completely beyond her. What kind of place was she in?

But the most troubling thing of all was that everyone had stopped what they were doing to stare directly at her.

Behind, Siesta grunted as she pulled the heavy door shut, blissfully unaware of the stares they were receiving. Turning around, Siesta halted next to Louise and raised an eyebrow at the room. To Louise's surprise, Siesta snorted and barked something in a foreign language. Most of the room returned to what they were doing with a grumble, although she still noticed a few curious stares coming her way.

"Come one," Siesta began, walking deeper into the room. "Let's sit down."

Choosing an empty table in a dark corner of the room Siesta plopped down with a happy sigh, her feet relieved to no longer have the weight of her body pressing down on them. Louise moved to sit across from her, giving the chair a look over and a quick brush before gently sitting down.

"What language was that?" Louise asked immediately, thoroughly surprised. Most commoners barely had the knowledge of their mother tongue. It was extremely rare for a peasant to be bilingual. "Everyone's speaking it... I can't understand a thing."

"That was Ukrainian," Siesta replied, setting her rifle to lean against the wall. "Most of the guys around these parts speak it. A lot of people speak Russian too."

Louise frowned. "Um... no Tristainian?"

Siesta crossed her arms. "It's not very common. They call it something else too. I've had to try my best to learn the languages here. I've got a half decent hold on Ukrainian and Russian I guess, since they're pretty similar. I can understand them well enough but I'm not that great in a conversation."

"I... see," Louise sighed rigidly, folding her hands together on the table.

"Enough of languages though." Siesta leaned her chair precariously onto its back legs. Louise's agitation seemed to have drained rather quickly. She smirked, hoping it would return. She was going to have some fun with this one. "There are more important things to talk about."

Louise nodded in agreement. "Yes, there are. First of all, where exactly are we?"

"Well," Siesta began. "This place is called the Zone. It's between the countries of Ukraine and Belarus."

Louise was silent for a few moments as she processed what she heard. "I-I've never heard of those places before. Are we... in the lands of the Far East? Beyond the lands of the Elves?"

Siesta shook her head with a snort. She didn't know much about that sort of thing. "Nope."

Louise's face took on the makings of anger. "Then where are we?"

"Okay, okay," Siesta leaned forward. She wasn't sure how she was going to get this point across, but she had just gotten an idea. "You know the Halkeginian moons, blue and pink right?"

Louise's face melted into confusion. "Well... yes? They're the moons after all."

"Not here they're not."

"...What?"

"They've only just got the one moon here."

Louise eyed Siesta in disbelief. "What in the world are you babbling about? That can't be possible! How can there be somewhere in the world where you can only see one of the moons? That just doesn't make any sense."

Siesta shook her head. "No, no, not one of the moons, a completely different one. Different color and everything. It's white."

"It's... white?"

Siesta nodded. "Yeah. It's small too, so it gets really dark here at night, but you can see a lot of stars. It's kind of pretty, actually."

Louise opted to cross her stick-like arms and glare. "No. I don't believe you at all. Stop telling lies."

Siesta shrugged, her face plainly showing that she didn't care if Louise believed her or not. "Don't then, but think about it, Noble Girl. The Halkeginian moons are visible all times of the day, right? Did you see them when we were outside? Don't you think they'd be pretty hard to miss considering how big they are?"

Slumping in her chair, Louise let out a defeated sigh. She hadn't noticed if the moons were present or not, but it wasn't like she went looking for them every time she stepped outside. They were always there anyway. "On the nearly impossible and very slim chance that you're telling the truth," Louise's eyes darted about, "...what could that even mean?"

Siesta thought for a moment, having wondered the same thing for a long time. "As far as I can tell we're in a different world or something."

A different world? Louise was sure that couldn't be possible. How could there be a different world? "You're lying."

Siesta shrugged, leaned back, and folded her arms behind her head. "Don't believe me then. See if I lose sleep over it."

Louise glared harshly. After a solid staring contest, she gave up. "So," she began, sighing heavily. "How did you find yourself here?"

Siesta let out a snort of laughter. "I saw a big green floating oval one night while working at the Academy and I was dumb enough to touch it. Next thing I knew I was waking up in a tree."

Louise broke out of her slump and perked up almost instantly. "T-The Academy? The Tristain Academy of Magic?"

Siesta nodded. She gestured towards Louise's school uniform. "I recognized those clothes. I was a maid there."

"You were?" Louise asked, trying to dig up a relevant memory. "When did this happen to you? Was it recently?"

Siesta scoffed. "No, it's been a while."

Louise sighed, quickly returning to her slump.

"So did you find yourself a big oval too?"

"No, I didn't," Louise said, still finding herself unable to remember the specifics previous to waking up. "Actually maybe I did, I don't really know. I don't remember what happened to me before I woke up outside. I remember going to bed the night before, and I know I must have gotten out of bed since I'm dressed. I was supposed to take part in the Springtime Familiar Summoning today. I... dread to think that this is the result."

"Oh, so you were supposed to do one of those," Siesta said wistfully, leaning back as she remembered. "I miss seeing those, so very interesting."

"Indeed," Louise responded. "So tell me about the Zone, it's a country between... You-crane and Bella-roose?

"Well the Zone is actually part of Ukraine. The military's supposed to keep people out." Siesta motioned to the room around them "Obviously they haven't really been doing their job."

"What does that mean?" Louise asked, confused. "Isn't that breaking a law? That would make these people criminals."

"Yup. Congratulations, by the way. You're a criminal now too."

"W-what!? No!" Louise protested, sitting bolt upright. "My coming here was an accident! T-they can't arrest me for that!"

Siesta laughed and spoke dryly. "Yeah I'm sure the military goons would be real understanding. They used to let people in and out if you bribed them enough, but after a few skirmishes with the stalkers they just started shooting on sight. I can only hope they calmed down."

"Stalkers?"

"That's us," Siesta told her. "That's what the government calls anybody in the Zone."

"Oh," Louise replied, sniffing and crossing her arms. "You haven't explained why nobody is allowed here in the first place."

"I was getting to that," Siesta said, drumming her hands on the table lightly. "I think it was because of a disaster that took place a long time ago, it made the land unsafe to live on. But now I think it's just because reality has been broken."

Louise scoffed loudly. "Reality broken? How could such a thing be broken?"

"Dunno," Siesta said. She picked at her ear and eyed her finger. Louise looked mortified. "I've heard lots of people talk about the disaster, but nobody really seems to know what happened in the Zone that made it into what it is today. Or maybe they do, I've never really bothered to ask about it much. I've just accepted that things are how they are. This place isn't like Halkeginia at all, honestly. It's almost like somebody told reality there aren't any rules, and it's been left to run wild and do whatever the heck it wants."

After a few moments of silence Louise spoke up and made a rolling motion with her hand. "Well, continue."

Siesta grunted. "Continue? I've got nothing left to say about that, unless you want to hear some stories."

Louise pursed her lips. "I don't suppose that I'll find them very interesting?"

"No," Siesta laughed. "Not at all. They'd probably make you never want to step outdoors again."

"O-oh." Louise's stomach twisted in apprehension. Siesta didn't do well in playing the reassuring card. In fact, she obviously wasn't playing it at all.

"I haven't spoken that much in ages." Siesta stood up. "Do you want anything to drink?"

Louise placed her elbow on the table and let her head rest on her hand. "Milk I suppose."

Siesta gave her a flat look. "Do you honestly think that they have milk in a place like this? Look around."

Louise glared. "Water then. Do they have water?"

"You really are a little Noble girl, aren't you?" Siesta remarked, smirking. "So innocent and sheltered."

Did this commoner honestly not care who she was speaking to? Louise couldn't believe this. "Just go."

Siesta laughed as she left the table for the bar, leaving Louise alone with her thoughts. If what Siesta has said about the moons was true, could it possibly mean that she was in a completely different world? Never in her life would she have thought that there could be another world. If she truly did summon herself into a different existence then how would she ever get back to Halkeginia? Magic was out, she had no wand. Even if she did, she would be hesitant to try and summon a familiar again. She would probably just send herself somewhere even worse.

In fact, she realized that without her wand she was completely defenceless. She sighed. It wasn't like she could throw a punch either. She feared she would hurt herself more than the other person. Siesta returned to the table, holding a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. She placed the bottle down in front of Louise before taking her seat across the table.

"What is this bottle made of?" Louise asked. She grabbed at it and found that it gave way quite easily in her hand. "It's... squishy, for lack of a better word."

"It's plastic," Siesta replied flatly. "Anyway it's got water in it, so drink."

Seeing that Louise was obviously having trouble in pulling the cap straight off, Siesta began to snicker. Louise immediately took notice and glared.

"You have to twist it," Siesta advised.

"I have to twist it?"

"Yes. Twist it."

"How?" Louise asked.

"With your hand, obviously."

Louise caught the plastic cap between the meat of her thumb and the side of her index finger. She twisted, but the cap didn't move.

"Other way," Siesta pointed out.

Growing frustrated, Louise put all of her available strength into twisting the cap the other way. It came away easily. Louise then eagerly drank in silence, thinking about her situation over and over again. Siesta had said that in the Zone reality was broken. She couldn't help but wonder what exactly that meant. No doubt she would see for herself, most likely sooner rather than later.

What could a broken reality produce anyway? She was sure there could be some interesting possibilities, but she knew Siesta was carrying around a gun for good reason. This probably wasn't a nice place.

"So what are you going to do now?" Siesta asked suddenly. She placed her half empty glass down on the table. Louise noted that the liquid in Siesta's glass was clear, was it water as well? If so, then why was it in a glass rather than a weird bottle?

Louise sighed and downed the remainder of the water. "I have no idea, honestly. I need to get back to Tristain."

Siesta snorted. "Well, good luck with that."

Louise looked up, her face serious. "No, I really need to. I'm a Noble. I have responsibilities. My family..." She trailed off in a sigh.

"You could walk for the rest of your life, but you'd never get there," Siesta pointed out solemnly. "Do you think I want to be here? I have a family too you know."

"Oh God," Louise lamented suddenly, leaning forward and bridging her brow with a hand. "What am I going to do now? I've really done it this time..."

Siesta nodded in understanding, giving her glass a swirl. "You could come and work with me if you like." Siesta saw the skepticism and surprise cross Louise's face. "Or if you'd rather deal with being tossed into this horrible place by yourself that's fine too."

Louise huffed, glaring at the stalker. "And what is it you do around here anyway?"

"Well to earn money I mostly hunt artifacts and trade in scavenged equipment. It can get pretty dangerous sometimes, but it pays well enough," Siesta explained.

"Artifact hunting?" Louise asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Artifacts are...?"

Siesta waved a hand dismissively. "Hard to explain, I'll just show you. That is, if you want to come with me?"

Louise was silent for a moment, considering her situation. "I suppose I don't have much choice in the matter, do I?"

"Of course you do. You're free to do whatever you want. If you want to live to see tomorrow though, staying with me is probably a good idea," Siesta said while Louise stared. Siesta saw the look crossing Louise's face. "Oh come on. I haven't kept myself alive for this long by being stupid. I know what I'm doing. We can head out after I finish my drink, and you'll get to see how lovely the Zone is this time of year."

* * *

 _Tristain Academy of Magic_

 _20:38_

"Where could she have gone?"

Kirche von Zerbst paced back and forth with a hand playing at her chin. The student dorms in the Academy of Magic were fairly spacious, giving Kirche plenty of room to roam around and contemplate her thoughts. Her fiery red hair swung wide as she turned to pace briskly again.

"Stop doing that."

Kirche stopped to eye the owner of the room, Montmorency de Montmorency. She sat before her mirror, brushing the curls out of her lengthy blonde hair.

"Doing what?"

"Pacing," Montmorency groaned. "It's beginning to drive me insane."

"What happened to Valliére is driving me insane!" Kirche said, firmly feeling that pulling her hair out might remedy the situation. She turned to Montmorency's bed to eye the third person in the room. "What do you think, Tabitha?"

Tabitha peered at Kirche from behind a book, her only response being a light shrug. Kirche sighed, knowing that Tabitha wouldn't have much to say. The blue-haired girl had probably said her fill of words for the day.

"You know," Montmorency began, placing her brush down with her hair somewhere between curly and straight. She felt disgusted with herself. "I feel incredibly terrible. All... all those things we said to her."

She and Kirche had both been the bane of Louise da la Valliére's existence, constantly poking fun at her terrible performance in the magical arts and generally making her life at the Academy a living hell. Their days had never been complete without making Louise storm off with her face red and tears in her eyes.

Now she was gone.

Kirche sighed, choosing to plop down on Montmorency's bed with her arms crossed. "I know how you feel. The only thing Louise ever wanted was to be a normal mage, we all knew that. She must have tried harder than anybody in the Academy. All she's gotten in return is what might have been a swift death."

"K-Kirche!" Montmorency cried, her head snapping to glare at the redhead. "For the love of the Founder, don't say that! She might still be alive... somewhere."

Kirche's shoulders drooped. "Honestly, you saw what happened. There was nothing left, only her footprints."

Montmorency turned away and bit her lip, wishing she could forget what she had seen. The explosion that had resulted from Louise's attempt to summon a familiar had scorched the earth nearly half a dozen feet around. The only places left untouched were where her feet had been planted. Kirche was right when she said there had been nothing left, Louise had simply disappeared. It had only happened the day before, but rumors were already circulating saying that the force of the explosion had been enough to disintegrate Louise.

"I went there later that night," Kirche revealed, causing Montmorency and Tabitha to both eye here curiously.

"Went where? To the summoning circle?" Montmorency asked weakly. The summoning circle was located outside the walls of the Academy, a fair distance away.

Kirche nodded. "I wanted to see if she was just hiding out or something, you know how she is... was."

"Kirche..."

"Anyway," Kirche continued before Montmorency could say any more. "Her footprints were gone. There was something else there."

Montmorency narrowed her eyes in confusion. "What... do you mean, Kirche?"

"It was like some kind of crack, or fissure in the ground," Kirche explained, crossing her legs. "I could feel the heat coming from it from far away, and not just because my affinity is fire, it was ridiculously hot."

"Hot?" Tabitha asked, speaking up for the first time since being in the room.

Kirche nodded. "I could feel it from over a dozen feet away. It became almost unbearable when I got close. There was a haze coming out of it too, like you see on a hot summer's day sometimes, you know? I didn't want to wave my arm through it or anything, so I levitated a rock through it."

"Well? And?" Montmorency asked curiously.

"It caught on fire."

"The rock caught on fire?"

"Well," Kirche shrugged, unsure of her own explanation. "It was more like the air caught fire. A huge jet of flames shot straight up and burned for almost a minute before it died out. I did it again after and the same thing happened."

"That..." Montmorency trailed. "That doesn't make any sense, at all."

"None," Tabitha added, having put her book down.

"I know," Kirche agreed. "But it's still out there, and I'm positive it has something to do with what happened to Valliére. I'm sure the teachers will find it soon and have the whole area closed off."

Montmorency sighed, turning to stare at her reflection in the mirror as she posed a question to herself. "What could that mean, I wonder?"

* * *

 _Chapter two guys! Not much happening here, only more setting up for the story to kick into gear with a little foreshadowing at the end._

 _Stay tuned for chapter 3! Where the stalkers get into some proper... stalking._


	3. Humble Beginnings III

_Humble Beginnings III_

 _Zaton_

 _15:32_

Louise shivered. She hadn't noticed earlier, or maybe the temperature had just dropped, but the Zone definitely wasn't as warm as Tristain this time of year. That is, if it was even the same time of year. There was no way to tell, and she wasn't in the mood to ask about something as mundane as the weather. Drawing her cloak tighter around her body did little to keep her warm.

They had left the marshy terrain that surrounded the Skadovsk and headed upward into the hills, where Louise discovered that the ground was much more solid. It was a discovery that Louise would have found much more pleasant if she wasn't so cold.

Louise had been about to voice an opinion, thinking that the Zone didn't look that bad so far. It was just a little chilly. In fact, the multitude of evergreen trees had reminded her of Tristain, but that illusion was quickly broken with a quick glance at the sky. The moons really weren't there. It was so strange. Soon enough, they came upon a small abandoned village not too far from the Skadovsk.

Siesta seemed adamant on avoiding the interior of the village, skirting along the outside instead of going straight through, which was fine with Louise since the place looked rather run down. She still felt the need to ask the stalker why, who had told her that fleshes usually roamed the area. When queried about fleshes, Siesta had said that they were probably the ugliest pigs Louise would ever see.

The rest of the walk was uneventful. They crossed a small stone bridge and followed the road a short ways before entering a lightly wooded area. They moved steadily uphill, towards what Louise could only describe as a bunch of trees tied in a knot.

Now, standing before the strange formation of trees, Louise saw what was really going on. A gully, which had probably been a river at some point, ran through the area with trees growing out of either side. The trees seemed to be tangled in each other over the gully, but upon closer inspection Louise found that they were all connected. The entire thing was just one tree with a measly amount of leaves on top, creating a canopy over the dry gully.

It was certainly the strangest formation of trees Louise had ever seen. Louise wondered at the point of this excursion. Siesta had mentioned artifact hunting, but what exactly that entailed was lost on her. The unpleasant temperature had been starting to seriously bother her, but standing at the foot of the strangest tree in the world had her momentarily forgetting all about it.

Siesta gestured at the tree with her rifle. "The other stalkers have been calling this one the oakpine anomaly," she told her. "Uh... pretty much explains itself I guess."

Louise eyed the anomaly. "So why is it... um... like that?"

Siesta snorted. "Who knows? Most things in the Zone just are."

The former maid slung her Mosin-Nagant rifle onto her back, and pulled the gas mask from her belt. Louise had taken notice of something in the distance, a flat building surrounded by tall strange looking metal structures. She wondered what the place could have possibly been for.

"Alright, so just wait here." Siesta's mask pointed straight up as it sat awkwardly on top of her head. She seemed to be waiting to finish speaking before sliding it down over her face. Siesta pointed down into the gully. "And whatever you do, don't go down there."

Louise quirked an eyebrow. "And why is that?"

"The air could be acidic down there," Siesta pointed out, as if it were normal. "You could probably run through it and it would only irritate your skin, but if you inhaled your day would be pretty much ruined."

Louise gawked openly. She looked down into the gully and noticed that the area had a sort of green haze about it. "Acidic air? T-that's ridiculous! Impossible!"

"Noble Girl, in this place anything is possible." Siesta tapped at her gas mask. "That's why I have this. If I fall at least I have a chance to run and get out of the anomaly if I haven't broken my legs." She then decided to address another issue. "So you lost your wand, right?"

Louise huffed and crossed her arms. "Unfortunately it was not with me when I woke up, and honestly, call me something other than 'Noble Girl'!"

Siesta seemed to ignore the latter half of what Louise said. "You don't look like you could throw a good punch," she snorted with laughter. "So you're basically defenceless?"

Reluctantly agreeing with Siesta, Louise nodded.

"Right, so here." Siesta reached around behind her back and brought out a small pistol. Louise stared. She definitely hadn't noticed that before. She knew Siesta had what she was sure was some kind of musket and a weird-looking pistol on her thigh, but she hadn't seen the one on her back. Was it concealed? "You've got eight shots before its empty."

"W-what!?" Louise cried as the deadly object was presented to her. "No! I-I-I don't know how to use a gun!"

Siesta sighed and held the pistol up for Louise to see. She pointed at the muzzle. "This is the bad end. Don't point it at anything you don't want to kill." She then pointed at the trigger. "And this makes it go bang. Like I said, eight shots. Don't waste them."

Siesta forced the Makarov into Louise's hands before she tightened her gas mask over her face. Louise stared at the gun. She held it loosely with her fingers kept away from the trigger as if the slightest movement could cause the whole thing to explode in her hand. She looked to the gun, to Siesta, back to the gun, and to Siesta again, who had now begun climbing onto the oakpine.

This situation had just left the realm of odd, and had breached right into the neighboring realm of stupidity.

"Hey!" Louise called out after the stalker. "I don't want to kill anything! What could I possibly need a gun for? Such a dirty weapon is unfit for a Noble!"

Siesta turned to look at Louise through her mask as she stopped to stand on a bent section of the trunk. "What are you going to do then? Are you just going to die?" She called back in a muffled but understandable voice. Siesta could see Louise deflate. "Just keep a lookout for anything unusual, alright?"

Louise motioned towards the oakpine. "Oh and what exactly would be considered 'unusual' around here?"

"Look, you'll know it when you see it," Siesta sighed. "Maybe I should have taught you how to handle a gun beforehand, but it'll just have to wait now. I wasn't really expecting to get my own little stalker apprentice when I got up this morning."

Louise rigidly turned away from the tree, and eyed over her surroundings. Trees, bushes, grass. Nothing of interest. Her eyes eventually landed on the Makarov once again. She didn't really want to hold the thing, in fact, she'd much rather just place it on the ground and walk away from it. Guns were dirty and nasty things; she hated them. Flintlock pistols were plentiful in Halkeginia. Even her father had a few that he used occasionally for recreation, but this little gun was nothing like them.

She found herself wondering how the gun worked, and why could it shoot eight times. Didn't guns normally only have one shot before they had to be reloaded?

On top of the oakpine, Siesta inched carefully along the thick branches with her detector held out in front of her. It was a Bear model, and it had served her well during her journeys throughout the Zone. The detector beeped and the colored display indicated that there was an artifact close to her position at about one o'clock. She smiled behind her mask, seeing the air shimmering before her.

On the ground, Louise waited impatiently with her cloak drawn around herself in another futile attempt to keep the cold out. Being small for her age, she had always found herself a little more sensitive to lower temperatures. She silently cursed her small frame.

Before she could continue that train of thought, a rustling in the bushes to her right caught her attention. She let out a tiny squeak of surprise, and her head snapped to the direction she was sure the sound had come from. Did this count as unusual? She brought her cloak tighter around her body, taking a step backward.

"S-Siesta!" Louise called, bringing her eyes away from the bushes and up to the tree. She couldn't see Siesta anymore through the leafy canopy on top of the twisted mass of wood and bark. "I think there's something here!"

Barely audible, she heard Siesta's muffled voice call back. "Shoot it in the face! That usually works!"

Louise bit her lip, feeling that voicing her opinion on killing was now pointless. More rustling, this time the movement was caught in the corner of her eye. She yelped and took another step back. Her bottom came to rest against the same tree Siesta had climbed. She glanced back out of reflex, her eyes catching the green haze swirling in the gully below along with something she hadn't noticed earlier.

A skeleton, its bones and clothing picked clean by the corrosive atmosphere. Only the unfortunate stalker's gas mask remained sitting loosely on the skull.

Swallowing, Louise came to the conclusion that falling into the gully was something she didn't want to happen. She tried to steel herself the best she could, believing her mother would have at least expected that of her. Without her wand she felt about as fragile as a newborn.

On top of the tree Siesta had just finished bagging her newly acquired artifact when a piercing scream caused her to nearly lose her balance. She quickly readied her rifle and moved to get a view of what was happening down below. She swore under her breath at what she saw.

Louise stared horrified at the creature before her, any semblance of steel within her gone. A nearly hairless and absolutely rabid looking dog stood before her with teeth bared and its eyes white and glossed over. It was, without a doubt, the single ugliest dog Louise had ever laid eyes on.

Louise slowly brought her cloak open and shakily pointed the Makarov in the general direction of the dog. She waved it to the side. "Shoo! Go away!" The futile attempt at shooing the dog seemed to have no effect. It didn't even track the movements of the gun through the air, giving Louise the impression that the dog might have been blind.

Releasing a single bark, the dog bounded forward with killing intent. Mostly out of fear, Louise squeezed the Makarov's trigger through its long double-action pull as hard as she could, and the air was filled with a satisfying pop. Her poorly prepared shot went wide, missing the dog completely. Fortunately, the noise alone was enough to deter the rabid beast, causing it to quickly change course and head for the bushes once again.

It didn't make it. A second and much louder shot split the air, sending the dog tumbling to the ground in a fit of twitching and gurgle filled yelping. It writhed on the ground for a few short moments before succumbing to the hole in its neck.

Louise looked up just in time to see Siesta working the action on her rifle. She gawked, knowing that if Siesta hadn't been so quick with her weapon the dog would have definitely come back for a second attempt. Louise looked to the dog and wondered if this woman had really been a maid. To her, the dog seemed like it was moving at the speed of light. Surely that would have been a hard shot to pull off.

Starting slightly, Louise whirled around and realized she hadn't noticed Siesta climbing down the tree and jumping the last few feet. She removed her gas mask and eyed Louise with a little concern on her face.

"Are you alright?" Siesta asked. Louise merely stared back at her dumbly for a moment. "Well I've definitely got to teach you how to handle a gun, and a bunch of other shit." In an instant Louise was back, jolting slightly as Siesta laid a hand on her shoulder. Siesta's face turned sheepish. "I probably should have done all of that first. I figured throwing you to the wolves would work well enough."

"Throwing me to wolves?" Louise gawked. "W-what!?"

Siesta rolled her eyes. "I'm just saying that perhaps I shouldn't have just dragged you out into the middle of the Zone."

"Oh, you don't say?" Louise said snappily, but she deflated quickly, and her expression softened. She should thank Siesta, she knew. The stalker had saved her life. Who would think that she'd ever thank a commoner? She cleared her throat, embarrassed. "Nevertheless, thank you. I believe you may have saved my life."

"The dog would have just run away," Siesta shrugged. "Probably would have brought back the rest of the pack though. Damn blind dogs."

Louise eyed the deceased dog. So it actually was blind, but why? She quickly remembered something, and handed the gun out to Siesta. "Here."

Siesta's eyes flicked down. "No," she answered. "Keep that."

"K-keep it?" Louise sputtered. "Why? I don't really want it, if I'm honest."

"You said you lost your wand," Siesta pointed out. "How do you plan on defending yourself? Don't bullets beat magic anyway?"

Louise glared. "I..." Her face dropped. "I've been told that's usually the case. Guns are so dishonorable..."

Siesta snorted. "What? Something that can change the balance and you Nobles just think it's dishonorable?"

"Is that how you commoners think? That violence can solve all of your problems?"

"Nah," Siesta shook her head, a dangerous glint in her eyes. "It's just how _I_ think."

Honestly? Louise wondered what kind of person she had just gotten herself tangled up with. Was she really stuck in this place? It couldn't be true...

"Come on, let's go back," Siesta turned away and began walking.

Louise looked to the stalker, pistol hanging loosely at her side. "What? Was there even a point to this, or did you just bring me out here to make me uncomfortable?"

Siesta stopped and reached into the bag dangling from her hand. "No. I wanted one of these." She brought out an object that looked like a small ball covered in hundreds of lengthy spikes. Siesta held it up and balanced it on her hand. "This is an artifact. This one's called a Kolobok. They're actually worth a lot and I've been trying to get one for days now."

Louise stared flatly. "Why?"

"Why are they worth a lot?" Siesta asked. Louise nodded. "Because they can heal injuries."

"Really?" Louise's eyes went a little wide. "Like healing magic?"

"Kind of," Siesta responded. "It's not magic though."

"I see..."

"Now, let's go," Siesta urged. "Before something worse than a stupid dog shows up."

* * *

In the depths of the Skadovsk the day had been progressing normally. Stalkers came and went, trading artifacts, buying food, or loitering about the area having something to drink. Few noticed the stalker sitting high on a wooden crate against the wall.

Although nearly every stalker carried a stressed out edge with them Grouse had much more weighing on his mind than anybody in the room. A police detective in a previous life, Grouse hadn't put his skills to use in the Zone in a long time, until recently.

Stalkers had been disappearing left and right with the recovered bodies few and far between. With the help of Tremor, the Skadovsk's only medical professional, and Gonta and his hunters, they had reached the conclusion that one of the Zone's foulest and most fearsome creatures was responsible.

Bloodsuckers. A lair of deadly bloodsuckers was somewhere in Zaton.

Grouse sighed, forcing the issue out of his mind for the time being. He had found a new curiosity that demanded swift answers.

Who the hell was the pink-haired girl that Siesta had dragged in?

Deciding that Siesta herself was taking far too long to reappear, Grouse chose the second-best option. He would ask Beard.

He stood, his stiffened legs protesting the exertion, and made his way across the room and through the small crowd of stalkers. He found the bearded man standing behind the bar as he did on most days, this time absentmindedly wiping a glass as he stared at an old television. It was wired to display the same images as the one that hung above the bar and faced everyone else. The same movies were usually played over and over. It was hard to get any VHS tapes this deep in the Zone.

Over time, Grouse had seen every movie Beard had at his disposal. Many of them were American bootlegs, and most of those didn't even have subtitles. His interest in the current movie nonexistent, Grouse leaned onto the bar and addressed the man behind it. "Hey, Beard."

The heavy set stalker grunted. He set the glass down with the others and turned to face his visitor. "Grouse. How goes the bloodsucker situation?"

Grouse sighed. He hoped that this conversation wouldn't take this turn so quickly. "Gonta has Danila and Garmata out trying to track down some more stalkers that have disappeared."

"I see."

"Listen," Grouse was eager to change the subject. "I've got something else I want to speak to you about."

Beard chuckled. "Grouse wants to talk about something other than bloodsuckers? With you it's always bloodsuckers this, bloodsuckers that. I was beginning to think the Zone had turned you into a broken record."

"It's a big issue, but lately..." Grouse groaned and wiped at his brow. "If I have to talk about bloodsuckers anymore today I'm just going to throw up."

Beard let out a single and very loud laugh. In the atmosphere of the Skadovsk it went largely unnoticed. "Right, right. What is it you want to talk about?"

"Did you see that girl Siesta dragged in here today?"

Beard chuckled. "You mean the one with the pink hair? How could I miss something like that? Who even has time to dye their hair in the Zone?"

"It wasn't just her hair," Grouse stated, shifting his weight onto his other leg. "Her clothes, her mannerisms... her cleanliness."

"I noticed," Beard played at his lengthy facial hair. "There's no way she's been in the Zone for long, no more than a couple of days, but..."

"But? Nobody could make it all the way into Zaton like that. The bandits would have picked her off before she even got halfway through the Garbage, if the friggin' dogs didn't swarm her first."

"I know," The rotund man grunted and crossed his arms. "It's had me thinking. She was speaking French too, I think, like Siesta."

Grouse's eyebrows traveled upward in slight surprise. His lips tightened. That was certainly interesting.

"Anyway, if she's with Siesta then she's in good hands," Beard said confidently. "Hopefully Sultan and his merry band of assholes don't give them too much trouble."

Grouse nodded in agreement. His distaste for the local gang of bandits was similar to Beard's. He hadn't really gotten as much as he'd hoped out of his conversation with Beard, other than the fact that this pink-haired girl spoke French like Siesta.

"If you want to ask Siesta about it yourself, she's just walked in," Beard suddenly pointed out. Grouse turned to find the stalker in question pulling the door shut with the pink-haired girl standing close by. Grouse squinted and saw that the smaller girl had her cloak wrapped tightly around herself, which gave off the impression that she was quite cold.

After she secured the door, Grouse realized that Siesta and her companion were coming straight for him, or more accurately, straight for the bar. Stepping to the side to make room for the two of them, Grouse greeted Siesta with a slight nod, which she returned.

Straight to the point as always, Siesta immediately produced a Kolobok artifact and began haggling with Beard over prices. Many stalkers would opt to keep such an artifact instead of selling it, although the danger of waking up one morning with radiation sickness usually deterred people from doing so.

Grouse paid little attention to the dialogue. He leaned back to peer around Siesta so he could get a better look at the pink-haired girl. To his surprise she had performed a similar action to get a better view of him. Their eyes met for only a split-second, but that was all the girl need to tear her gaze away. But Grouse had noticed something interesting during their short period of eye contact.

Her eyes were pink.

Grouse sighed as the two girls left just as quickly as they came. They made for the upper levels of the ship. He hadn't gotten the chance to speak to Siesta at all and felt that chasing her down was a little unnecessary, if not rude. He decided against asking Siesta about it directly, he simply hoped he could casually bring it up in conversation with her some time, even though she didn't seem to be much of a conversationalist. In fact, he'd never heard her speak more than two words at a time to anybody. Language barriers could be a frustrating thing. Everybody had their reasons for coming to the Zone, so he was sure the little pink-haired girl had her own reasons as well.

Grouse shrugged it all off and promptly decided that he needed another drink before Danila or Garmata returned.

* * *

 _The Cordon_

 _23:17_

Standing up from the fire and arching his back, Drifter decided that his bladder had become far too full. He excused himself and sauntered around the back of a nearby dilapidated house to break line of sight with the other stalkers.

In the southern Cordon there was a small village known amongst all stalkers as the rookie village. It was aptly named. The village was where many stalkers would take their first steps to becoming a stalker. It was a simple arrangement. A single road divided two clusters of old houses. A few tall birch trees stood in the spaces between buildings, blooming up over the rooftops. In the front yard of a house near the center of the village there was always a campfire.

Drifter quickly chose himself a corner in the far side of the fenced in backyard. He sighed happily as he relieved himself.

His business was done, so Drifter turned around and began to walk back to the fire, only to stop dead in an instant. A bolt of what appeared to be green electricity shot through the air right in front of him. He yelped loudly and jumped backwards in surprise. More bolts shot through the air as they began to manifest themselves into a violent ball of energy. He clumsily drew his sidearm, unsure if it would be of any help to him.

The ball of energy suddenly stabilized, and then it grew tenfold in size.

"Holy shit!" Drifter shouted. He hoped it was loud enough for his friends to hear. He gazed at what was now a giant glowing green oval about two meters in height, and one in width. "What the fuck is this!?"

Drifter saw a group of stalkers emerge from around the house, and was thankful. They immediately raised their weapons, while Drifter lowered his own. They all stood for a moment and stared in disbelief at the oval between them.

"Drifter!" One of them called out, his rifle pointed at the oval. "What the hell is this thing?"

"How should I know!?" Drifter replied, spreading his arms out to his sides. "Stop pointing your guns at me for fuck sakes!"

The stalkers did. An older man at the front of the group took a few steps forward. Drifter recognized his fellow stalker Fanatic through the green glow. "Drifter! Come over on this side!" He called.

Drifter shook his head. "No way! I'm not moving until it's gone!"

The oval suddenly began to shimmer and hum loudly with intense energy. Before Drifter could realize what had happened, something shot towards him and hit him square in the chest. He fell to the ground, feeling a heavy weight latching onto him.

As quickly as it had appeared, the oval snapped closed. It left only silence in its wake.

Fanatic advanced with the other stalkers, weapons ready. "Drifter, are you..." Fanatic trailed off as he came upon Drifter, and saw just what he was tangled in.

"A girl?" Drifter sputtered. He rolled the unconscious girl off and shakily rose to his feet. She was a young blonde, her hair long and done in some crazy ringlets. Her clothes were a strange assortment, a white long-sleeved shirt, a black skirt, and a long black cape. Drifter cocked an eyebrow, wondering who was weird enough to actually wear a cape. He shook his head of the thought.

 _Never mind that, what the hell just happened anyway!?_

"Now that," a stalker, Hound, piped up. "Was the craziest shit I've ever seen."

Fanatic sighed. He took his eyes from Hound and looked back to Drifter. "Drifter, take the girl to Sidorovich. Explain what happened, I think he'll know what to do."

"What?" Drifter breathed as he holstered his weapon. "What does that old man know? Did you see what happened?"

"Listen, you heard what I said," Fanatic said sternly. "Sidorovich will know what to do, take the girl to him."

Drifter didn't want to get in an argument, so he lifted the girl bridal style and trudged past the other stalkers, who were all eager to get a glance at the blonde in his arms. He passed the now vacant fire and continued further down the road.

He didn't understand how Sidorovich would know what to do. For all Drifter knew, Sidorovich was just a fat, balding, and rude old man who charged too much for whatever he sold and never took a step outside. He was sure the only reason he was still around was his connection to the outside. He eyed the girl's face out of the corner of his eye. Nodding to himself, he had to admit that she was pretty. Really pretty.

He frowned as he reached the entrance to Sidorovich's bunker. The bunker was located on the outskirts of the village, and was underground. Drifter was pretty sure it had been a fallout shelter before Sidorovich had moved into it, and could very well still function as one.

Drifter descended the stairs and took more care than usual not to trip. He reached a landing and turned 90 degrees, moved down another set, and then turned again. The door to the innards of the bunker came into view, left ajar as usual. Sidorovich was plainly visible through the window in his walled off area of the bunker. He sat behind his desk with a bored expression on his scruffy face as he watched something on his computer screen. He noticed Drifter approaching as he descended the last of the stairs and raised an eyebrow at the girl in his arms.

"Drifter," Sidorovich began in his gravelly voice as he paused whatever he was watching. The old man wore a long- sleeved plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. True to the word of most stalkers his hairline had begun to recede, which was something better left unspoken. "If you're trying to sell a little girl, you've come to the wrong place. There's shit even I won't do to make money."

"That's good to hear," Drifter began, unsure of how to explain his situation. "I'm not trying to sell her. I... uh... don't think you'll believe what happened, but Fanatic said you'd know what to do, so..."

Sidorovich snorted and leaned back in his chair with arms crossed. "Humor me then."

"Well, I was at the fire telling the guys about the snorks down at the car park, and..."

"Oh come on I don't give a shit about that," Sidorovich grunted impatiently. "That's just news for Fanatic. Tell me about the girl."

Drifter had already told Fanatic about that, along with many others. Fanatic was having something organized he was sure. Drifter sighed. "She dropped on me out of some giant green oval."

For the first time in his life Drifter saw the expression Sidorovich wore when he was genuinely surprised. After a moment of tense contemplation and realization, Sidorovich stood from his chair and pointed dangerously. "You better not be bullshitting me."

"I'm not man, shit. Ask Fanatic, he was there too."

Sidorovich grunted and grabbed a set of keys from his desk. He opened the rickety wooden door leading to his side of the bunker. "Quickly, bring her in here."

Confused, Drifter did as he was told and entered Sidorovich's side of the bunker. The old man quickly locked the door and led Drifter into the back, into his living space. A single, small room contained everything a simple man would need. Cooking supplies, a place to lay their head, and an honest-to-god bathroom.

Drifter sighed happily at the thought. He hadn't used a real bathroom in ages.

If the jealous kind of stalker were to lay eyes on this they might just tell their friends so they could storm the bunker to take it for themselves. Although, if this were to happen there would be no more connection to the outside, and besides, nobody really wanted to fight through the entire rookie village just to shit in an actual toilet.

"Put her down here," Sidorovich ordered. His gesture was directed towards a saggy old couch. Drifter nodded and set the girl down lightly. Sidorovich eyed her over with a calculating gaze. "She's not like the last one, that's for sure."

"What?" Drifter asked with narrowed eyes. "What do you mean?"

Sidorovich glanced at the stalker and motioned towards what looked like an old French maid outfit hanging from a clothes hangar rack amongst a conglomeration of musty outfits. "This isn't the first time this has happened."

As Sidorovich explained to the bewildered stalker, the blonde girl stirred on the couch, unconsciously bringing her body closer together for warmth.

Montmorency Margarita la Fére de Montmorency would have quite the surprise waiting for her when she awoke.

* * *

 _Made it to chapter 3! Would have posted it last night, but I decided to let it wait instead of staying up until 3 in the morning. Anyway, hope you enjoyed and stay tuned for chapter 4 where Siesta and Louise tackle an actual in-game mission!_


	4. Humble Beginnings IV

_Humble Beginnings IV_

 _Zaton_

 _07:43_

From the deck of the Skadovsk, the calm morning air was permeated by the sound of distant gunfire. It was not an uncommon sound in the Zone. Occasional pops cracks and bouts of automatic fire were perfectly normal. However, the gunfire drifting through the air now was different, one shot after another again and again. It had been that way for the better part of an hour.

Pilot stood on the Skadovsk's deck, leaning against the railing while he enjoyed a morning cigarette. He wondered to himself, was someone doing target practice?

He sighed, noticing a familiar formation of dark clouds to the north. He decided he may as well stay inside at this point. His trip into Yanov would be a little delayed.

* * *

North of the Skadovsk and up in the wooded hills, Siesta sighed with a pair of binoculars pressed to her face.

"You missed again, low-left this time."

Louise groaned in frustration, slowly and deliberately cycling the action of Siesta's rifle while still keeping her eyes on what she had been trying to shoot. The pink-haired girl had been roused early in the morning after the worst sleep of her life, and she and Siesta had taken a trip into the hills to practice shooting. Louise's target was a section of steel, snatched from the Skadovsk's aging hull. It had been a troublesome affair to carry the heavy piece of metal through the marshes and uphill, but their location kept them well out of the way.

"This is hopeless!" Louise took aim at the steel once again from a crouched position. Siesta had placed the target a fair distance away so it wouldn't be too easy for her to hit.

"Yeah, you kind of suck," Siesta laughed, lowering the binoculars to see Louise shooting her a glare. "Pretty sure you have to reload, by the way."

Louise's glare melted into confusion. "No, the gun holds five, right? There's one more in it."

Holding her aim on the steel the best she could, Louise prepared for the rifle's stock to hammer her shoulder once again, but she was only met with a hollow click. She heard Siesta chuckling and her glare returned in full force.

"Told you. Can you count to five or not? You Nobles, I swear..."

"Shut up," Louise growled. She dug deep into a pocket of her newly acquired coat for more ammunition. They had gotten the long black coat and a pair of tan cargo pants from Owl the night before, and even though they were the smallest the trader had, they were still a little on the big side. Louise's fashion sense cried out in horror in the back of her mind, which she tried her best to ignore. They were practical clothes, they kept her body at a comfortable temperature and the coat offered plenty of storage with its interior and exterior pockets. Without a brush to tame her hair in the morning, Louise had resorted to putting it up in a simple ponytail, a practical hairstyle to match her new attire.

Louise's hand came out of the pocket with five cartridges, and she began inserting them into the rifle's internal magazine individually. The magazine full, she closed the bolt and crouched to take aim again.

"Try and hit it this time," Siesta commented from behind her binoculars. She felt Louise's glare hit her once again and began snickering to herself.

Louise aimed the hefty M91/30, steadying it the best she could before firing. As the sound of the gunshot rolled through the trees, Louise heard a metallic clang drift back.

"Hit, low-center," Siesta turned to grin at Louise as she cycled another round into the Mosin's chamber. "So that's... seven hits and sixteen-million misses?"

"You obviously haven't been keeping track. That's the twelfth time I've hit it."

"Are you sure about that? You couldn't count to five a minute ago," Siesta pointed out.

"You're insufferable," Louise shot back before letting another bullet fly. A satisfying metallic ring reached her ears again. She smiled for a moment, but quickly took it back. She shouldn't be enjoying this. It was barbaric. Siesta had told her the night before that she needed to let go of being a Noble, since it literally had no bearing at all in a place like this.

Louise had scoffed at the thought then, and she scoffed at it now. Let go of being a Noble? Fat chance she was going to just let go of everything she ever was and will be.

"Two in a row, huh?" Siesta commented, lowering her binoculars. "Don't think it'll ever happen again though."

Louise sucked her teeth, cycling the Mosin again. She watched as the empty casing was flicked away when the bolt reached its reward position, and picked up a fresh one when she pushed it forward. Despite thinking it was rather barbaric, she found it quite interesting. "I didn't think guns could be like this. It seems to be much more efficient than slamming everything down the barrel."

Louise fired again, and Siesta advised that her bullet had missed low and right.

Siesta picked up on Louise's comment. "That old bolt-action is nothing compared to newer guns."

"I see," Louise fired again only to miss high. "Why don't you have a newer gun then?"

Siesta thought for a moment. She had considered replacing her rifle many times. "That Mosin has served me well. I've had it ever since I first came to the Zone. I've kind of gotten attached to it. Besides, my pistol is a semi-automatic."

The weapon terminology was lost on Louise, but she rolled her eyes nevertheless. She felt that an instrument of death was nothing to get attached to. She fired the final shot out of the Mosin's magazine, the metallic ping coming back to them a moment later. She began to reload, but was interrupted when Siesta rose to her feet.

"That's enough of that for now. Seems like you're getting the hang of it," Siesta stretched her back with a squeak and glanced down at her watch. "Don't wanna use up all the ammo. Let's go back to the Skadovsk and get something to eat."

Louise made a noise of disgust as she finished loading the rifle. "That food is wretched."

Siesta scoffed, turning around and walking away. "Don't complain. That's the best you're going to get around here."

"H-hey!" Louise had to endure a brief session of jogging to catch up with Siesta. "Don't you want your rifle back?"

"You carry it." Siesta flapped a hand dismissively. "It's heavy."

The Mosin was indeed a hefty amalgamation of wood and steel. To Louise it seemed like it would be a troublesome affair to have to bring it everywhere. Her eyes drifted up to the sky as the sun was blotted out. It had begun to cloud over.

The woods thinned out and the marshes came into view. The mud on Louise's boots had just managed to dry, but she was only going to get them wet again. Louise frowned, she hated mud. A lot. She thought for a moment, considering if mud would fit into the top five things she hated most. Right now, it did.

As they began to descend the hillside into the marshes, Siesta stopped Louise with a raised hand. She pointed downward into the marsh. "There's a boar."

"A boar?"

Siesta nodded and Louise followed the stalker's pointed finger. A single boar casually drank out of a murky puddle near a row of reeds.

"They're really aggressive, typically," Siesta explained, looking up at the sky and casting a glance over her shoulder to the north. She clicked her tongue in an annoyed manner before quickly turning back to the boar. "They usually travel in packs, two or three most of the time. Sometimes they have fleshes with them. It's odd to see one alone."

"I see."

Siesta cast a sideways glance at the pink-haired girl. "Hey, take this seriously alright? You'll want to know stuff like this if you're out on your own. I'm doing my best to teach you here."

Louise huffed. Being taught by a commoner? Honestly... "I am taking it seriously."

"Really? Then shoot it."

"W-what?" Louise asked, surprised by Siesta's sudden order. "Why? I-it's just minding its own business right? There's no need to shoot it... right?"

The stalker let out an annoyed sigh. "Didn't I just say it's aggressive? Obviously once it knows we're here it's going to try and attack. It's in our way, so we might as well get rid of it."

"I... fine." Louise crouched down and readied the Mosin.

"Don't get me wrong." Siesta peered over Louise's shoulder. "I don't go around killing things just because I can. If you can avoid a fight, avoid it, but sometimes you've got no choice, you know?"

Louise was silent, the only sign she even registered what Siesta had said was a slight nod. She bit her lip, mentally saying sorry to the boar before pulling the trigger.

The bullet tore through the boar's flesh like it wasn't even there. Snorting in anger, it stumbled forward for a moment before collapsing in the same puddle it had been drinking from. A new color was slowly added to the already dark water.

"Nice," Siesta observed with a nod. "I figured you'd miss."

Louise sighed, cycling the Mosin. "Am I supposed to feel good after that?"

Siesta shrugged. "I dunno. I just kind of feel indifferent."

A rustling from below caught Siesta's attention. Two more boars emerged from the reeds, snorting and growling. They quickly charged through the puddle towards the girls, seemingly intent on avenging their fallen comrade, if boars could even have such a mentality.

Louise let out a surprised squeak, raising the rifle to bear once again. Siesta quickly drew her sidearm, a Fort-12 pistol, and dispatched the first boar with three quick shots. Louise flinched at the sounds of gunfire so close and prematurely jammed down on the Mosin's trigger. The bullet connected with the boar's flank, causing it to flop over with legs still moving wildly as it snorted in anguish. Two more shots from Siesta's pistol silenced the boar.

Siesta directed a stare in Louise's direction, who sighed. "It... it's my first time killing animals, alright?" Louise said quietly. "I didn't think they could... twitch like that when you... you know."

Siesta chuckled lightly, holstering her pistol. "We might make a stalker out of you yet, Noble Girl." Louise frowned, rising from her crouched position as she cycled a live cartridge into the chamber. She grew slightly irate at the use of her new nickname. "Come on, we should get back to the Skadovsk."

Louise nodded, cradling the Mosin as she followed Siesta into the marsh. They weaved through the tall plants, their journey inevitably lengthened as they took time to avoid bodies of water in favor of more solid ground. Their dried boots became muddy once again as the Skadovsk neared.

"Oh!" Louise yelped as her foot sank into the mud up to her ankle.

Siesta glanced over her shoulder and laughed at Louise's angered expression. "Just wait until you get in up to your knees."

"My knees?" Louise sighed, the mud making a disgusting sucking noise as she plucked her foot from its grasp. "Does this dreadful mud ever go away?"

"Yeah, in the winter when it freezes. We should keep..." Siesta trailed off as a suspicious noise traveled through the air. A deep groan seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, almost as if the atmosphere itself was under a great pressure. Siesta looked past Louise and frowned.

"W-w-what was that!?" Louise rattled quickly, turning around to look in the same direction as Siesta. A huge formation of darkening clouds was growing exponentially in size, rolling and twisting angrily. Louise started as the sound of thunder rolled through the air and a sudden gust of wind tossed her hair.

"Emission soon."

"E... what?" Louise faced the stalker, fear written on her features. "What does that mean?"

"It means we gotta get back to the Skadovsk," Siesta said sternly, motioning with a flick of her head. "C'mon, jog."

"W-wait!" Louise called out, but she was ignored. She let out a ragged sigh and chased after Siesta in a light jog. Luckily, the Skadovsk wasn't far. After splashing through some shallow puddles and avoiding larger ones, Louise slowed as she passed through the opening in the Skadovsk's hull. It hadn't been a long jog, but Louise was nearly out of breath when she caught up with Siesta at the door.

Siesta gave her a flat stare. "You've gotta get back in shape. Then again, you were probably never in any kind of shape to begin with."

"Shut up!" Louise huffed as Siesta wrenched the door open. They swiftly entered, leaving the door open for an approaching group of stalkers. They found their way to a vacant table by the wall. Louise plopped down and leaned back in her chair after propping Siesta's rifle against the wall.

"I'll go grab some food," Siesta announced, to which Louise only nodded. The pink-haired girl slumped forward, resting her head in her arms as she still tried to find her breath. She wanted nothing more than to be home in Tristain right now, and she had a feeling that she'd only miss home more and more as the days went on.

She wondered what the people at the Academy thought happened to her. Perhaps they thought she was dead? She certainly hoped not. She feared how Cattleya would react if such news were to reach her. Another thought entered Louise's head as the ship shuddered with the increasing winds outside.

Maybe she was dead, and this was hell.

Louise shook her head of that particular thought. She felt far too alive to be dead, and she'd imagine hell would be much, much worse than this. Besides, what could she have possibly done to deserve eternal damnation in hell? Louise looked up when Siesta tossed a couple of flat round cans on the table and unceremoniously flopped down in the opposite chair after removing her backpack.

"Eat up, sunshine," Siesta said dryly, sliding a can, fork, and a bottle of water across the table.

Louise eyed the can of tuna fish with contempt, having tried the canned food the night before. She found it retched. She glanced up at the stalker, who had already dug in. "Sunshine?"

Siesta shrugged, speaking with her mouth full. "You look depressed."

Louise narrowed her eyes for a moment, quickly catching onto the former maid's sarcasm. Just how many nicknames was this person going to give her? "Would you not feel depressed if you were in my situation?"

"I was in your situation, once," Siesta pointed out, gesturing with her fork. "And I was pretty depressed. I still am, sometimes, when I think about my family." She forked another mouthful of tuna. "I guess they must think I'm dead by now."

Louise frowned, prying open the can and shuddering at the odor. More thunder, this time the ship seemed to vibrate with it. Louise turned to look at the door as a few late arrivals hastily stumbled in, completely out of breath. She swore it was turning red outside. What was going on? "Does this happen often?" Louise asked.

"Oh right. Emission," Siesta said, twirling her fork. "Sometimes from the center of the Zone there's this huge release of energy. It happens randomly, usually it's once every day or two now, but way back they used to only happen once every few months."

"I don't understand." Louise forced a mouthful of tuna down her throat with a grimace. "Why do we have to be inside? Is it kind of like... a really bad storm?"

"I guess you could put it that way." Siesta took a swig from her bottle. "If you can't find cover during an emission you're done for." Seeing Louise's expression begging for more information, Siesta continued. "The energy affects the minds and bodies of anything living. You'd be lucky if you just dropped dead. Those who aren't so lucky get zombified."

Louise choked on the tuna she had been about to swallow, making the dreadful taste remain in her mouth longer than she cared for. "Z-zombified? Zombies? What?"

"Ah." Siesta smiled. "So you know zombies, huh?"

Louise couldn't quite read that smile. She let out a sigh. "I... I might not look the type, but I do enjoy a good horror novel."

"Me too. Now you get to live one."

Louise stared down at the table, picking at her food absently as she wondered if any sane person would actually want to live a horror novel. There were always rumors of people magically controlling the dead to do their bidding in Halkeginia. Necromancy was a dreadful and dark art. Obviously, this was a different situation altogether.

Forcing another mouthful of tuna down, Louise scanned over the room. The ship had become quite crowded, and while the din of conversation was loud it failed to drown out the weather occurring outside. Louise continued to scan the room, noticing that quite a few stares still came her way.

It was then, Louise noticed something troubling near the bar.

"S-Siesta! Oh God!"

Siesta snapped to attention, glaring. "You scared the crap out of me! What is it?"

"Look!" Louise pointed, fear clearly written on her features. "I-it's horrible!"

Confused, Siesta turned to look where Louise was pointing. She saw nothing out of the ordinary. "I don't see anything."

"How can you not? In that box over there! There's... oh Founder, Siesta, there's people in it!"

Siesta laid eyes on the television above the bar, and knew exactly what Louise was thinking.

Siesta was unable to contain her laughter.

* * *

The upper levels of the Skadovsk were occupied by a few different personalities, one of the more notable being Cardan. He could usually found in his small workshop above the bar hunched over gutted firearms, a cigarette hanging between his lips, and a bottle of vodka nearby. In Zaton, if a stalker was unlucky enough to have his weapon damaged or broken, Cardan was the man to see.

While most stalkers were competent enough to keep their best means of self-defence in working order, Cardan certainly had his regulars. They were obviously a good source of income, but the veteran stalker couldn't help but be annoyed.

He sighed as he continued his disassembly of an AK-74, hearing the familiar groan of the metal flooring as somebody approached. He didn't bother to look up, fully expecting to hear a familiar voice ring out with, 'hey dude! I totally broke my shooter again man!'

A voice that never came. The footsteps – make that a pair of footsteps – halted just inside the room with neither of the unknown visitors saying anything. He glanced up from his work, taking a drag from his cigarette. His eyebrows found their way up his forehead when he noticed who had come to visit him.

He recognized one stalker immediately as Siesta. She was fairly well known around Zaton, despite having not been in the area long. She was the only female around, after all. Keyword being was.

Standing next to Siesta was another girl, a tiny thing that didn't look a day over twelve years old. Her most striking feature was her hair, bright pink in color. Upon closer observation he found that her eyes were even more striking, just as pink as her hair and bright with the life of somebody who hadn't had their heart torn out by the Zone yet. She curiously looked around the room, eyeing Cardan's organized mess of firearm components and scrapped weapons.

Cardan tore his eyes away from Louise, who he had now dubbed 'Pinky' in his mind. Instead, he turned his vision to the other veteran stalker in the room.

"Siesta," he greeted, receiving a nod in return. "What is it that you've broken?"

"Nothing," Siesta replied simply in heavily accented Ukrainian. "Beard said you had work."

"Work?" Cardan turned back to the Kalashnikov on his workbench. "I've got an unfinished job, yeah."

Hearing nothing from Siesta, he glanced in her direction and saw her expression telling him to explain. He took a final drag from his cigarette and crushed the butt in a nearby ashtray. He removed the bolt carrier and gas piston assembly from the Kalashnikov, using it to gesture about as he began explaining.

"A couple of weeks ago Magpie asked me if I needed any work done, so I asked him to see if he can find me some better tools. Now, before I start, you know how things go with Magpie, right?"

Siesta snorted. "Unfortunately."

"Yeah. He kept telling me about how he had the perfect tools, all he had to do was go get them, but he didn't have the time," Cardan snorted. "Load of bullshit, I think. One day he told me he was going to get them after he did some work with Gonta and his hunters, but I never saw him after that."

Siesta nodded, remembering the disappearance of Magpie and what happened to Gonta and his hunters well. Apparently Magpie had accompanied them on a dangerous hunt and had ditched them in the heat of the moment, but not before making off with all of their gear.

Cardan continued. "So, I don't know what happened to Magpie, nobody does, but those tools he found might still be stashed where he left them, if there were even any in the first place. I'll make it worth your while to go and check it out."

"Where?" Siesta asked.

"In the sawmill," Cardan replied. He paused to think for a moment. "He said in a small house, in the attic, I think. I don't remember the layout of the place well."

Siesta was silent for a few moments before nodding. "Alright. I'll go look."

"Awesome. I'll still compensate you even if you can't find anything, but if you do, there'll definitely be money in it, or maybe I can whip up something for you," Cardan said, motioning to the assortment of firearm parts lying around.

Siesta nodded again, quickly excusing herself and Louise. The pink-haired girl finally spoke as they made their way towards the stairs.

"So... what is it that we're doing, exactly?"

Remembering that Louise couldn't understand Ukrainian, Siesta decided to give her a quick run-down of the situation as they descended into the bar. To Louise it seemed a simple enough task, walk somewhere, look around for these so- called tools, and then walk back. As they made their way through the bar the pair found themselves stopped by Grouse.

"Siesta," he greeted quickly, not waiting for a response before he continued. "Are you busy right now?"

Siesta donned an aura of surprise. "Doing something for Cardan, but..."

Siesta found herself cut off as Grouse raised a hand. "It's fine, don't worry about it." He quickly left the pair, heading into the upper levels of the Skadovsk.

"What was that about?" Louise asked.

"No idea," Siesta admitted with a shrug. "Strange guy."

They left the innards of the Skadovsk, went right after shutting the door, and right again once they exited the hull. As they reached the top of a hill, Louise saw the large pipeline that she had noticed from a distance already. It was suspended high enough off the ground to walk under, and was definitely large enough around for a normal sized person to crawl into. It angled down into the earth before it reached the marshes, becoming an underground pipe before it emerged from the ground on the other side and continued on.

"Pipe can lead us right to the sawmill, if we want," Siesta explained, noticing where Louise was looking. She adjusted the rifle strapped across her back and pointed to the hills across the marsh. "We'd get pretty wet though, so we'll take a detour. There's more water on the other side of that hill and I'm not in the mood to get soaked."

"I like the sound of that." Louise frowned as the mud met her boots once again. "So this person named Magpie told Cardan he was going to bring him the tools he wanted, but he just disappeared?"

"Magpie was... well, I met him once," Siesta explained as they traversed the marsh. "He was a total douchebag. Always trying to screw people over, being generally unpleasant, stuff like that."

"Doosh-bag?" Louise asked, unfamiliar with the term.

Siesta laughed. "That sounds really funny coming out of your mouth. It's an insult."

Louise huffed. "Right then. So this man was generally unpleasant. Please, continue."

"Alright, so one day Gonta hired Magpie to go with him and his hunters to hunt down a chimera. They came to me after hiring Magpie and asked if I wanted to come along as well, but I turned them down."

"Why's that?"

"Because Magpie was there," Siesta said. "They came back afterward and Crab was pretty beat up. Apparently Magpie ran away and left Gonta and his guys to face the chimera while he stole their gear. He hasn't been seen in Zaton since."

They reached the hill on the other side of the marshes, ascending away from the muddy terrain onto more solid ground.

"That's despicable," Louise muttered in distaste.

"No kidding," Siesta agreed as they ascended the hillside. "If Gonta ever sees him again I'm sure he'll blow his head right off."

They soon reached a road that ran perpendicular to the pipeline. Louise followed as Siesta left the pipe to follow the road. If she wasn't mistaken it was the same road they had followed to get to the oakpine anomaly, only they were heading in the opposite direction. They had only taken a few steps on the road when a small pack of animals rushed across the road ahead of them and scurried down towards the marshes.

"Fleshes," Siesta commented. She saw that Louise was going for her Makarov. "Let them go. They're easily frightened, but they don't usually attack unless you get too close."

"R-right."

They continued to follow the road, and Louise saw that they were closing in on a small cluster of houses. If she wasn't mistaken, they all looked completely charred black. Upon closer inspection as they neared, barely anything was left standing. Most the houses were missing walls, while some were reduced to heaps of ashes.

"Is that... the sawmill?" Louise certainly hoped they wouldn't be sifting through ashes and rubble.

"Nope," Siesta grinned. "They call that one the burnt farmstead. Normally I'd just go around it, but I wanna show you something cool."

Louise could only wonder what Siesta meant. How could a bunch of burned out houses have anything 'cool' in store for them? She wasn't even sure as to what the expression 'cool' entailed, but she doubted it had anything to do with temperature. As they neared the houses Louise felt the air around them becoming warmer. When they passed the first house, Louise felt like she desperately needed to shed her coat. Louise stopped when she noticed Siesta had stopped to stare at her, sweat visible on her face. Louise looked around, seeing that the air on either side of the road was a dense haze. Even a few embers sparked and crackled on the ground at random.

"Siesta," Louise said slowly, wiping at her brow. "What exactly is going on here?"

"Are you warm?" Siesta asked, smiling.

"Of course I'm warm!" Louise said fervently, growing uncomfortable. She hated extreme heat, because it made her sweat, and she loathed sweating like she loathed many other bodily functions.

Siesta let out a short laugh before she reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out a small object.

"What is that?" Louise asked snappily, eager to leave the strange warmth surrounding them.

"A bolt," Siesta replied. "Check this out." She swiftly threw the bolt into the hazy air. Louise shrieked in surprise when a large jet of flames shot straight upward where the bolt had passed through. They burned furiously for a few moments before sputtering out. She gawked, looking from Siesta, to the hazy air, and back to Siesta again.

"W-what in the Founder's name?" Louise marveled, horrified. "What just happened?"

"Burner anomaly." Siesta gestured towards the hazy air drifting up from the ground. "I wanted to show you this. If you ever see the air all hazy like this and the area around is burnt or really hot, good chance it's a burner."

"So if I touch it." Louise stared into the haze. "Fire will just shoot out of nowhere?"

"Yeah, and you'll probably catch fire as well." Siesta motioned up the road with a flick of her head. "Come on. Stay on the road and walk where I do."

Louise did as she was told, walking closely behind Siesta until the small village was behind them. The cool breeze that flowed past afterward felt like a blessing. It felt sincerely odd to follow the commands laid out by a common woman, but Louise had to admit; Siesta knew what she was doing. They continued along the road mostly in silence, the barks of dogs in the distance, wails of unidentifiable creatures, and pops and cracks of distant gunfire were the only things that served to break the silence around them.

Siesta pointed out a twisted and gnarled tree where all the leafless branches pointed in the same direction, which Louise eyed with a drawn out 'hmm.' After a few more moments of walking, Louise looked out across the hills as the road began to curve. Over the next hill the world seemed to just disappear in a veil of fog. Staring into it, Louise felt as if she was looking at the end of the world itself. She suppressed a shudder, thankful that the road was steadily curving left and away from that direction.

"What's that way?" Louise asked hesitantly. She regretted asking, because she almost didn't want to know the answer.

Siesta stopped and gazed out into the fog. "That goes deeper into the center of the Zone."

"The center..." A foreboding feeling swam in Louise's gut. "What's out there?"

Siesta spared her a glance. "Nothing as far as we're concerned. That's not a place anybody should go."

"I see... is it always shrouded in fog like that?"

"Nine times out of ten, yeah," Siesta said. They didn't remain to admire for long. Siesta continued along the road once again with Louise on her heels.

A short stone bridge soon came into view at the bottom of a gentle incline, and across the gap in the earth Louise saw that the trees thickened considerably.

"Do you see it? In the trees?" Siesta pointed across the bridge. When Louise tried hard enough, she could make out the shapes of a few buildings hidden within the trees. It seemed to be a fenced in compound atop an elevated area shrouded in tick pines, making it impossible to pick out any useful details. The road they were following cut through the trees, leading to a gate.

"Would that be the sawmill?" Louise asked hopefully.

"It would," Siesta nodded as they began to cross the bridge. "I'm pretty sure I know which building Cardan was talking about, so this shouldn't take too long. This place is usually abandoned."

"Good," Louise replied quickly.

Siesta looked over her shoulder as they reached the other side of the bridge, sticking her tongue out playfully. Louise shot her a quick glare before turning her attention to the ground in front of her. She hadn't walked much further when she found herself walking into Siesta's back. Louise glared up at the back of the stalker's head, intent on telling her not to just stop walking for no reason.

Louise yelped as Siesta grabbed her firmly by the arm and dragged her off the road to hide behind a thick evergreen.

"What did you do that for?" Louise growled.

"Shut up," Siesta said sharply, brandishing her binoculars. "I saw some people at the gate down the road. We're lucky we weren't spotted."

Louise quickly shrunk back, a dead weight settling in her stomach. She had enough common sense in her to know that bandits would roam the lands of a place like this. It was only natural.

"Shit," Siesta swore under her breath. The expletive was all Louise needed to assume the worst.

"I-is it bandits?" Louise asked nervously. "Have they spotted us? Should we run?"

"Zombies." Siesta lowered her binoculars. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

This was going to be much more troublesome than Siesta had anticipated.

* * *

A/N: Not much happening in this chapter, sadly. Mostly walking and dialogue. I originally wanted the complete 'find basic tools for Cardan' mission in this chapter as well, along with a few other scenes after that, but it started becoming too long so I decided to end it here. My intention for this story was to have the chapters to be around 3 – 6 thousand words each, excluding the first chapter. When this chapter started getting close to 10 thousand, I decided to cut it here.

This might change in the near future. However, I still don't plan on cranking out 20 thousand word chapters for each update.

But fear not, because chapter 5 is basically finished, and only has to be touched up. It will be along very soon, and we will see how Louise fares against the zombified stalkers.

Also, fun fact: I don't know about the vanilla game, but I know if you're playing Call of Pripyat with the Misery mod, then you can see Reactor 4 most of the time on the Zaton map, you might have to get to higher ground to see it, but it's there, and it's really far away, to the north. I tried seeing in the vanilla game, but after starting a new game about fifteen times to reset the weather effects, it's just always fog out that way. Nevertheless, I decided to include it anyway.


	5. Humble Beginnings V

_Humble Beginnings V_

 _Zaton_

 _13:05_

"Z-z-z-zombies!?" Louise sputtered, the color draining out of her face. "O-oh! That's unfortunate, I g-guess we're just going to have to go back and tell the man we couldn't get his tools." She laughed forcibly and nervously. "W-what a shame too, s-s-since we walked all the way out here!"

Louise suddenly found a pair of blue eyes boring into her own and froze up when Siesta clamped a hand down hard on her shoulder.

"Oh we're getting those tools," Siesta said, seemingly deadly serious. Then, a longing and almost maniacal expression crossed her face. "You saw all those parts lying around in the workshop, there were enough spare AK parts to make half a dozen working rifles, at the very least. Cardan said he could whip something up if we brought back those tools for him, if he can make us an AK..." Siesta squealed happily, drawing Louise into a girlish hug. "I want one!"

Louise pried the ex-maid off her, not understanding her excitement over firearms one bit. She pointed an accusing finger at Siesta. "H-hey! You said that your rifle is good enough for you! You said that you've become attached to it, so you don't need another gun!"

"I've changed my mind!" Siesta chirped, eyeing Louise impishly. "Just now, actually."

Louise sighed, closing her eyes as she massaged her temples. She opened them again, and saw that Siesta's facial expression hadn't changed. She bit her lip, suddenly wanting nothing more than to wipe the expression off the stalker's face.

"Are you scared, Louise?" Siesta asked suddenly, her grin fading. "Honestly, it's okay if you are."

"Am I scared?" Louise growled lowly, leaning in close to the ex-maid. "Of course I'm bloody scared! They're zombies, Siesta. Zombies! Do you really think I'd fancy being eaten alive?"

"Alright, alright!" Siesta glared, pushing Louise away. "Calm down."

Louise sighed, shrinking slightly under the stalker's glare. "So what are we going to do?"

"We could probably sneak through if we're lucky, the zombies are pretty stupid," Siesta began, readying her Mosin. "We'll have to kill any that get in our way."

"K-k-kill!?" Louise asked fearfully, tensing up before visibly relaxing. "Well, they are the undead, so I suppose it's for the best."

"Uh, they're not undead actually," Siesta explained, gaining a confused look from the pinkette. "Remember what I said about the emissions? They're still alive, just mindless."

Before Louise could respond, the rustling and snapping of somebody forcing themselves through the brush came to their attention. Louise saw it first, a figure shambling through the trees, loosely hanging onto a sawn-off shotgun. A zombie that had wandered down the hill from the sawmill had managed to evade their attention thus far, and had inadvertently snuck up on them. Louise couldn't move, or even make a sound. Fear had completely enveloped her as her eyes locked onto the shotgun, which was now moving to point towards her.

Siesta wrapped an arm around Louise's waist, pulling her around the tree to put it between them and the zombie. The first shot from the zombie's shotgun tore up the ground, sending dirt into the air to rain down on the pair. The second shot glanced off the side of the tree, the buckshot taking wood and bark with it.

Releasing Louise, Siesta spun out from around the tree and efficiently landed a shot from her Mosin square on the zombie's chest. It emitted a raspy groan as it stumbled backward, blood spilling from its mouth. Intent on downing the mindless stalker before it could reload its shotgun, Siesta fired again, watching as the zombie's head was flung backwards before it collapsed in a heap.

Cycling the Mosin, Siesta spared a glance at Louise, finding her white as a ghost.

"You... y-you," Louise began shakily, swallowing. "You killed him... you just killed that man!"

"No shit!" Siesta growled, frowning. She motioned for Louise to follow, advancing on the downed zombie. "He was a zombie, what did you expect me to do? Let him kill us?"

Louise hesitantly followed after the stalker, not particularly inclined to see the state of the body. As she stopped next to Siesta, who was observing her handiwork, Louise felt her stomach churn. The first shot had simply punched a neat little hole through the zombie's chest, but the second shot had entered through the zombie's eye and had subsequently blown out a portion of the back of his skull, allowing blood and brain matter to freely leak onto the ground.

"So with these zombies, you don't have to destroy the brain to kill them," Siesta began, crouching next to body and placing her rifle on the ground. She pried the shotgun from the zombie's hands. The sawn-off was a double barrel, in an over-under configuration. It wasn't sawn off to be quite as short as most shotguns she had seen, and interestingly the stock still remained to create sort of a coach gun. Siesta cracked open the shotgun, raising an eyebrow as the shells were ejected by the gun itself. It wasn't a model she was familiar with, and to her seemed like a handy little rig to keep around. "Like I said, they're still technically living. They've just become completely mindless."

The sound of somebody retching suddenly caught Siesta's attention. She turned to find Louise facing away, emptying her stomach into a bush.

"Oh come on Louise, you're throwing up?" Siesta scoffed, rolling her eyes. "I paid for that food you know, that's kind of rude."

"His brains..." Louise moaned, wiping her mouth between retches. "I can see... his brains. Oh Founder!"

"Yes, you can. Now come here, please."

Louise shakily stepped over to Siesta, a hand held over her mouth. The stench of sweat, waste, and other bodily fluids wafted off the corpse in waves, hitting her like a brick wall.

"Don't think of it as killing a person," Siesta advised, stripping all the shotgun shells she could find off of the body. "Think of it as... putting them out of their misery. Yes, think of it like that. They walk around all day, shitting their pants, unable to make sense of anything happening around them. If I were in that situation, I'd definitely want someone to put a bullet in my head."

"Siesta, I..." Louise began, biting her lip. "I don't think I can do something like that, k-killing somebody."

"Zombies Louise, they're zombies," Siesta said, standing up and holding out the shotgun for Louise to take. "Just think of it as practice."

"P-practice?" Louise sputtered as she tenderly accepted the shotgun. "Practice for what?"

"Well," Siesta began, taking the liberty of dumbing a few handfuls of shells in one of Louise's coat pockets. "For when you have to kill somebody that's not so mindless."

When Louise didn't respond, Siesta began instructing the pinkette on the use of the shotgun. The simple operation of the weapon meant that there wasn't much of a learning curve to get over.

"Come on," Siesta said, motioning for Louise to follow. The pinkette did so without a word, advancing up the hill towards the fence. The chain link fence had a sizeable portion missing, allowing them easy entry, and any zombies an easy exit. Passing through the fence, they found themselves in an area where logs were being stored. Stacks of logs sat forgotten, having never gotten their turn to be cut down into lumber. They took cover behind a short stack, allowing them to easily peek over and observe the area.

Straight ahead, Siesta saw a large concrete building. A large set of double doors was at one end of the long building, and if memory served, there was another set at the other end. She could see one zombie aimlessly shambling to the side of the building, and another lurking just inside the doors. The tall stacks of logs obscured their view of the rest of the compound.

"Do... do you see any?" Louise asked timidly. Siesta glanced at the pinkette to find her trying to be as small as possible behind the logs as she kept a white-knuckled grip on her shotgun.

"Two," Siesta replied. She pointed with her rifle. "By the building over there."

"Alright," Louise sighed nervously. "What do you propose we-"

Louise was abruptly cut off by a drawn out groan from her right. Both her and Siesta's heads snapped in the direction the groan had come from. A zombie appeared from around a tall stack of logs, seemingly unaware of their presence, until Louise let out a tiny squeak of fear. The zombie slowly turned its head towards them, its eyes unfocused and saliva dripping from its gaping mouth. It wore a coat similar to Louise's, and loosely held a pistol in one of its hands.

"Shoot it!" Siesta barked as the zombie lazily raised its pistol in their direction. Louise wasted no time, and hastily leveled her shotgun in the zombie's direction. The shotgun barked, recoiling painfully into the pinkette's slender shoulder. While it felt like she was simply punched in the shoulder, the zombie had fared much worse. The buckshot had torn through its chest, causing it to collapse backward in a twitching heap.

"N-no!" Louise cried, eyeing the corpse in horror. "I d-didn't mean... why is it twitching!?"

Ignoring Louise's comment, Siesta grabbed her by the arm and dragged her away from the logs. They ran across open ground, taking cover by a derelict tractor. Siesta crouched and took the opportunity to fire on the zombie outside the concrete building. She saw it fall, and quickly adjusted as she cycled a new round into the chamber, moving to stand and fire over the tractor's bonnet at the zombie just inside the building. It fell as well.

"In the building!" Siesta ordered, taking off into a sprint with Louise not far behind. Shots rang out as they ran through the open, hissing as they flew dangerously close.

'Don't hit me! Don't hit me!' Louise prayed in her mind over and over as she ran. Shots tore up the ground between her and Siesta, causing Louise to scream in fright as dirt rained down on her. She flew in through the doors after Siesta, her thankfulness to be in the safety of the building shattered instantly.

A zombie shuffled in the middle of the room, apparently heading towards the door they had entered through, likely attracted by the sounds of gunfire. Siesta wasted no time, the last shot in her Mosin's magazine tearing through the zombie's stomach. The zombie jolted, taking a few steps back as blood began to soak its clothes. It still stood, luckily not holding onto any sort of weapon.

"Shit!" Siesta swore, going for her sidearm. Evidently, Louise beat her to the punch, a volley of buckshot from her shotgun tearing up the zombie's face and neck. Siesta glanced at Louise with raised eyebrows, seeing her breathing heavily with eyes wide, still holding her shotgun ready. The ex-maid began reloading her rifle. "Hey, reload."

"R-right!" Louise sputtered, breaking open her double-barrel. She replaced the ejected shells with shaking hands, and no more than a few seconds after she had locked the barrels back in place, she heard somebody shuffling about. She whirled around to the source of the noise, finding that a sub-machine gun wielding zombie had gotten in through a side door set into a small entryway.

Sparing Siesta a panicked glance, only to find she was still reloading, Louise raised her weapon and unleashed a shell of buckshot that tore through the zombie's chest. It stumbled backward, collapsing in the doorway.

"T-this is stupid! We s-shouldn't be doing this!" Louise cried, keeping one eye on the side entrance and another on the main door. She only hoped Siesta was doing something similar behind her. She glanced down at her shotgun. "E-every time I shoot this thing it feels like it's going to break my shoulder!"

"That'll happen when the barrels are cut short, but it shouldn't be that bad," Siesta said, snorting. "You're just a bit of a weakling I suppose."

"How can you talk like that in this kind of situation!?" Louise growled, throwing a glance over her shoulder to thankfully find Siesta crouched with her rifle trained on the other set of double doors. She released a groan. "I think I'm going to vomit again."

"No time for that," Siesta said quickly, rising to her feet. "Reload again and let's move before more of them show up."

Cracking open the shotgun, Louise squeaked in surprise as the unfired shell ejected along with the empty one. She mumbled her distaste for firearms as she retrieved the unfired shell from the floor and placed it back in the bottom barrel, along with a fresh one in the top barrel.

They left the building through the doorway opposite the one they had entered through, finding themselves rather close to another fence. Siesta led, keeping close to the building as they moved to get a look at the rest of the sawmill. Louise quietly peeked over her shoulder.

"Looks like they're heading our way," Siesta observed, clicking her tongue in annoyance. Indeed, some zombies seemed to be migrating uphill towards the building they had been in, while others seemed content with merely standing idle or

walking in strange patterns. "We have to move before they find us," Siesta said, pointing to a small red brick building that sat close by. A rather large tank was situated on top, and interestingly, the pipeline that they had been following earlier seemed to have circled around the compound to connect to the building. Its purpose, Louise had no idea. "Let's take cover over there."

Louise had no objections, staying on Siesta's heels as they stealthily darted from one building to the other. Siesta lowered herself to the ground, laying down at the edge of the building with her rifle ready. Louise crouched down beside her, ready for their next move.

"I'm fairly certain that's the building," Siesta said, pointing a finger. Louise peeked out from around the building, seeing a small and quite run down house sitting at the opposite end of the compound, nestled in the corner. All they had to do was go in the house, get the tools from the attic - if they were even there - and get out. There was only one problem, it seemed.

"Founder above..." Louise breathed, moving back behind the building. "How many of those things are down there?"

"Over a dozen, at least. Probably closer to twenty," Siesta muttered, letting out a sigh of frustration. "Fuck! We'll have to wait for them to wander away, so chill out for a bit, but don't let your guard down."

While not familiar with what it meant to 'chill out', it didn't take much thinking on Louise's part to get a general idea. She opted to remain standing, leaning her back against the building. After a few quiet moments, the pinkette eyed the stalker out of the corner of her eye. "Do you actually have to be so vulgar all the time? You were an Academy maid, were you not? I'm sure if you spoke like that even once you'd have been fired."

Siesta shot her a glare. "What are you talking about? You want to start nitpicking now? At a time like this? Fine, I can play that." Pausing for a moment, the ex-maid appeared to be having second thoughts. "You know what? Never mind, we can do that later."

"Only because you can't think of anything," Louise scoffed quietly.

Siesta's glare intensified. "Well, I can't blame you for being scared. I might not look like it but I'm freaking out right now. I also can't blame you for being a bad shot, since yesterday was probably the first time you've ever held a gun. Your Noble attitude is kind of annoying, but I suppose after... however long you've been alive, that it would be a hard thing to just stop in two days." Siesta's glare softened, melting into a cat-like smile. "But I seriously can't believe that you saw the TV in the Skadovsk and went like 'oh my god there's people trapped in that box!', that was properly hilarious."

Louise glared, her grip on the shotgun tightening. "Anybody in their right mind would be scared right now. There are zombies everywhere, and they have guns! That's probably the worst combination of things that could possibly ever happen. In regards to my shooting – as much as I dislike these weapons – I've been hitting everything I've intended to hit, haven't I? Of course I missed that piece of metal with your rifle a few times, it was really far away."

"Yeah, but you've got a shotgun now," Siesta laughed. "Anybody can hit something with a shotgun."

"Whatever," Louise growled, looking away from Siesta. "My attitude isn't just going to change either. I'd rather if it didn't change at all, if I'm honest. And the Tee-vee... I've... I've never seen anything like that before, o-okay!?"

"I know, I know," Siesta replied, waving a hand dismissively. "But you should have seen your face. You totally looked like a fish, all wide-eyed with your mouth open." Siesta imitated the expression, to which Louise only scoffed.

The pinkette opted not to say anything for a few moments after that. She simply leaned against the wall of the building looking down at her feet, taking occasional glances in the direction of the long concrete building to see if any zombies were coming their way. It soon became evident that they were not.

"I'm sixteen," Louise suddenly spoke up, remembering that when Siesta was speaking she had referenced not knowing how old she was. "My birthday is in the summer."

"Oh," Siesta replied simply. After a moment a smirk found its way across her face. "I could have sworn you were like, twelve."

"W-what!?" Louise sputtered, her face growing red. "Why is that? Is it my h-height? Or w-w-was it my... my..." Louise trailed off, hearing the ex-maid releasing a series of stifled giggles. "And now you're laughing! Why?"

"I was kidding, relax," Siesta winked, laughter still written on her face. "Just wanted to see how you'd react. Now keep quiet, if we just sit up here having pleasant conversation one of them is going to hear us eventually."

While not a conversation that Louise would have considered pleasant, Siesta's logic was sound. Having the entire compound-full of zombies bearing down on them would be less than ideal. In fact, being anywhere near this place was a less than ideal scenario in Louise's mind. She didn't particularly care about getting the tools for Cardan. She wished they would just return to the Skadovsk and tell Cardan that they couldn't get the tools because the sawmill was currently occupied by a legion of zombies.

Louise heard the rustling and clinking of equipment coming from Siesta's position. She glanced, finding that the ex-maid was now looking through her pair of binoculars.

Sighing quietly, Louise wondered if this is how her mother felt early on in her career as a soldier. Nervous, apprehensive, scared. Very scared. If Louise had faced this kind of situation alone, she would have certainly ran away and never looked back. It was the logical thing to do. A teenaged girl versus twenty or more gun-toting zombies? It was ridiculous. In fact, two teenaged girls versus twenty or more gun-toting zombies was just as ridiculous.

Was Siesta even teenaged? Louise realized that the stalker's age remained a mystery. She decided she'd ask later.

Despite the stupidity of the situation, Louise found herself remaining by Siesta's side. She obviously couldn't just run away and abandon the person who had decided to help her. It was an indecent and dishonorable thing to do. Running away now would just make her into another Magpie.

Gunfire suddenly erupted from the other end of the compound, causing Louise to release a stifled squeak in surprise. She turned to Siesta, who still gazed through her pair of binoculars.

"W-what's happening?" Louise asked nervously, crouching down and shuffling close to Siesta to peek around the building. "Did some people stumble into those zombies?"

"Better than that," Siesta snorted. "There's a huge pack of blind dogs down there."

"You're joking," Louise groaned. Unfortunately, it seemed Siesta wasn't joking. Outside the fence of the sawmill a pack of dogs had attacked the zombies, who in turn had opened fire on the blind beasts. The gunfire was steadily attracting more and more of the zombies to that position, and away from the house Louise and Siesta wanted to search through.

"This could be good," Siesta began, rising to a crouched position. She put her binoculars away, slung her rifle onto her back and drew her sidearm. "Look, those zombies are all being attracted by the gunfire. Well, most of them anyway. We can slip in while they're distracted."

"A-are you sure? I mean..." Louise bit her lip, eyeing Siesta seriously. "I really don't want to die here."

"Don't worry," Siesta smiled, racking the slide of her pistol. "I've done stuff like this tons of times."

Louise frowned. Was it honestly possible to encounter more situations similar to this one? "That just makes me worry more."

Rolling her eyes with a smile still on her face, Siesta turned back to observe the conflict between the dogs and the zombies. When Louise had just begun to relax a little again, Siesta suddenly stood up and began running.

"Come on! Now!"

"W-what!? Wait!" Louise cried, taking off after the stalker. The sprinted towards the house, the area now void of any zombies aside from a few stragglers. A shambling stalker to their left was quickly taken care of by Siesta's pistol, and another standing idly to their right was met with a load of buckshot.

They flew into the house with weapons ready for any mindless stalkers that may be waiting. Louise followed Siesta as she began quickly searching through the rooms, muttering obscenities every few seconds. It didn't take long to find a room with a weathered wooden ladder leading up into the attic.

"Okay," Siesta began quickly as she mounted the ladder. "Wait down here. Try and keep the house clear."

Louise nodded, keeping her weapon trained on the door. It didn't take long for her to hear shoes thumping against the wood flooring, slowly coming closer. A zombie shambled in front of the door, seemingly taking no notice of Louise. The pinkette fired anyway, her volley of buckshot blowing straight through the side of the zombie's head.

"God..." Louise breathed shakily, breaking open the shotgun to reload. In her mind, it wasn't right to have to shoot these people. It wasn't their fault they had become like this, but if she didn't kill them, they were going to kill her. She prayed that both God and the Founder would forgive her.

Worryingly, the gunfire outside came to a stop. Louise began to panic, wondering if the dogs had won and were now coming for her, or if the zombies had won and were now coming for her. At the same time, Siesta came flying down the ladder, skipping the last few rungs and jumping to the floor. She quickly brushed past Louise.

"Come on! Let's get the hell out of here!" Siesta yelled, making for the exit as fast as her legs could carry her. Louise had no objections, following closely behind. She was relieved that no zombies seemed inclined to shoot in their direction. She hoped they hadn't noticed them leaving.

They swiftly exited the compound through a section of missing fence near the red brick building. They didn't stop and Louise refused to look back, fearing that if she did she would see a hoard of zombies chasing after them. After a few minutes of solid running through the trees, Louise couldn't take any more.

"Si... esta..." Louise breathed, clumsily slowing her pace. "I can't... I have to stop."

Siesta stopped as requested, barely showing any signs of fatigue, while the pinkette collapsed to her knees completely out of breath. Quickly eyeing their lightly wooded surroundings, Siesta was content that there was no immediate danger. The zombies didn't seem to be following, and even if they were, they would take quite a while to catch up. She kept her guard up regardless.

"Hey," Siesta began, looking down at the huffing girl. "Are you alright?"

"No!" Louise barked, throwing her shotgun into a nearby tree. Siesta winced, fearing the double-barreled weapon might have gone off from the impact. The pinkette sent a fierce glare towards Siesta. "No I am not bloody alright! Don't you understand? I killed people! I... I..." Louise's voice wavered, her tone quickly changing. She looked away. "I killed people..." She moved to sit on her bottom, bringing her knees up to her chest.

Siesta sighed, leaning against a nearby tree and crossing her arms. "You know I understand."

"I... I know, it's just..." Louise paused, wiping at her eyes. "I know they w-were zombies but, God... their faces. I didn't want to kill them. I really didn't."

Giving the pinkette a sympathetic look, Siesta pushed off from the tree and moved to stand in front of Louise. Before she could speak, Louise spoke again with her face buried in her arms.

"This is it now, isn't it? This is my life now, whether I like it or not, right?"

"You'll get used to it."

Louise looked up, flabbergasted. "How could I possibly get used to this?"

"I thought that before," Siesta replied, a reassuring smile spreading across her face. She extended a hand for Louise to take. "But you will get used to it. A lot faster than you think."

After a moment of hesitation, Louise wiped her eyes once more and accepted the hand, finding surprising strength in it as she was helped to her feet. Siesta picked up the shotgun Louise had tossed, handing it back to the pinkette who reluctantly accepted.

"So you're okay?" Siesta asked.

"Yeah," Louise muttered weakly, although she felt the farthest from okay than she had in a long time. "Please tell me you found those tools. If I went through that for nothing then I swear to the Founder I'll-"

Siesta held up a hand to silence the girl. "Don't worry. My backpack weighs a ton now. Cardan's gonna be pretty happy."

"That's great for him," Louise muttered. "Can we go back to the ship, please? I'd like to sit down for a while and not worry about being eaten or shot."

Smirking, Siesta motioned for Louise to follow with a flick of her head. "C'mon then. Let's find the road."

Louise nodded, following behind the stalker with only one thought ringing through her head.

 _I want to go home._

* * *

Cardan nodded in satisfaction, seeing all the tools laid out before him on his workbench. Siesta and Louise had made it

back to the Skadovsk in good time, a small pack of frightened fleshes and a few stray dogs being their only opposition. They had been quickly dealt with.

"This is great. I can't believe that guy had actually found those tools. I can understand why he didn't try and get them though," Cardan said, puffing on a cigarette. He glanced to his side, seeing Siesta simply standing with her arms crossed as if everything was business as usual, while her small pink-haired companion looked like she needed a good sleep, and a stiff drink, in his opinion, at least. "You're crazy for going in there with a shitload of zombies. You're even crazier for dragging that little girl with you."

Siesta shrugged. She doubted that those zombies had been in the sawmill when Magpie had said he was going to get the tools. Somebody would have taken notice long ago if that were the case. She felt that the zombies were a recent, and unfortunate, addition. "What's done is done."

"Right," Cardan sighed. "I suppose. You at least told Beard, hey?"

"Of course," Siesta nodded.

"That's good, at least now the stalkers can be made aware," Cardan grunted, reaching into his coat and counting out a few hundred Rubles. He handed them to Siesta. "Here, for your trouble. And," Cardan turned back to the table, picking up a gun that Siesta hadn't noticed during her first visit. "Some stalker brought this in for spare parts, but with the amount of parts I have lying around here, I got it working again no problem while you were gone. Take it."

Siesta gawked, accepting the weapon. It was an AKS-74U if she wasn't mistaken, a short barreled version of the AK-74, with a folding skeleton stock. It looked a little weathered, no doubt having seen its fair share of fights. While some stalkers might scoff at being given a weapon that appeared to be in such a condition, Siesta knew better. She was always grateful to receive anything in the Zone.

She quickly thanked Cardan a multitude of times before dragging Louise out of the workshop. She had an idea.

* * *

Simply put, Louise was quite blown away.

After watching Siesta empty an entire thirty-round magazine out of the AK in full automatic fire, Louise decided that weapons like these shouldn't exist. Having such an efficient way to kill was ridiculous. Imagining an entire army deploying weapons like these certainly put some fear in her. An army with weapons like these could destroy her own country's army with disturbing ease.

"That was awesome!" Siesta remarked excitedly, bouncing on her heels. They had returned to the same place they'd been in the morning. Although they'd moved quite a bit closer to the piece of steel, and now had a new weapon to send lead at it with. "I should have got one of these sooner."

"I don't think you hit the plate. Not even once," Louise commented, arms crossed.

Siesta made a raspberry noise, removing the AK's empty magazine and locking in a new one. "I wasn't trying to hit it. I just wanted to spray bullets everywhere."

Louise scoffed. "Well if that was truly your intention, then bravo, you've had a great success."

Rolling her eyes, Siesta turned to glare at the pinkette. "I know you're pretty upset over what happened at the sawmill, but get over it. You should expect shit worse than that in the days to come."

"Whatever," Louise growled, looking away.

"Now here," Siesta said, holding out the short-barreled AK for Louise to take. "Give it a try."

"W-what?" Louise asked, raising an eyebrow. "No, I don't want to try it. It's ridiculous. It has never been and never will be necessary to shoot that many times that quickly. It's stupid. Whose idea was it to make guns do that anyway? Stupid."

"Oh come on," Siesta whined in a childish tone, a smirk spreading across her face. "Stupid can be fun, sometimes."

After a few moments of contemplation, and growing tired of the expression Siesta wore on her face, Louise decided to just give in. "Fine then. Give it here."

Taking the AK in her hands, Louise pulled the charging handle completely to the rear and let it fly forward as she had seen Siesta do. Already, Louise had to admit something to herself.

Chambering the weapon like that, felt kind of... good?

She shook her head, mentally berating herself. Guns were stupid, dirty, and awful things that caused only pain and suffering. They represented death in every aspect of their existence, and she was ashamed to have to even carry one to defend herself.

She lined up the sights on the steel plate and depressed the trigger. She was shocked as the gun began to let loose. So shocked in fact, she only realized that she had forget to let off the trigger until after all thirty rounds had been fired. She was even more shocked to find herself wearing a small and stupid grin. Firing this weapon for herself had been a much more staggering experience than she had anticipated. She quickly suppressed the tugging at the ends of her mouth, hoping Siesta hadn't seen it.

She had.

Laughing loudly, Siesta clamped a hand down on the pinkette's shoulder. "You totally thought that was awesome, didn't you?"

Louise sighed, removing the empty magazine. "I'll never say it again as long as I live, but yes, I did."

"Also, you missed the plate."

"I've gathered that much, thanks," Louise shot back, glaring. She handed Siesta the empty magazine, and to her surprise, she was presented with a full one.

"Try it again, this time on semi-automatic," Siesta suggested. She quickly instructed Louise on how to shift the weapon from fully, to semi-automatic fire.

Firing the weapon like this, one bullet for every pull of the trigger, Louise found it was much easier to control the weapon, she could actually hit what she was aiming at. Their proximity to the steel allowed her to hit it with nearly every round in the magazine. Removing the empty magazine, Louise groaned as she was again presented with another one.

"Siesta, I'm not shooting another one. Don't you think it's kind of a waste? How much money do you even have left? All of these bullets cannot be cheap."

Siesta smirked. "I was actually gonna ask you to not shoot that one. Don't worry about my money either. I've got enough for whatever we need. From now on we'll split everything we make, starting with that." Louise was surprised as the stalker pointed to the AK.

"Split this? How are we going to split your gun?" Louise asked, confused.

"It's our gun," Siesta corrected, drawing another confused look from the pinkette. "We both went into the sawmill, so it belongs to both of us. Hold onto it. Kind of suits you, actually. I don't want to carry my rifle and that at the same time anyway, too much weight."

"I suppose that makes sense," Louise said, nodding. "But how am I supposed to carry this and the shotgun as well?"

Siesta bit her lip in thought. "We'll figure something out. We can probably go back to Owl and see what he's got."

Louise made a noise of disgust. "That man is..." The pinkette trailed off, moving to look around Siesta. "There's somebody..."

Before Louise could finish Siesta had whirled around, her hand ready to draw her pistol at a moment's notice. Laying eyes on the person approaching, she relaxed only slightly, still keeping her guard up. She didn't recognize the man, but his sunrise suit covered by a long coat spelled typical stalker garb. He had short brown hair and sharp eyes, and didn't seem to be that old.

Louise moved to stand next to Siesta, cradling her assault rifle. She didn't have much interest in the approaching stalker, but she did note that he was carrying an AK very similar to the one she was holding.

"Hello," the approaching stalker greeted jovially. "Doing some shooting?"

"Yes," Siesta replied in Ukrainian, reaching over to Louise and ruffling her hair. "Just teaching my rookie."

Louise smacked the ex-maid's hand away, glaring. She wasn't sure what Siesta had said, but she had a vague idea. She wondered why everybody couldn't just speak Tristainian. It would be much simpler and she'd actually be able to

understand somebody other than Siesta. She always thought having so many different languages was idiotic. There should just be one language for everyone to speak. "Never do that again."

Siesta only laughed in response, turning back to the nameless stalker to see him eyeing them both curiously. She realized that between her accent and Louise's hair color, they must certainly seem to be an odd pair.

"I see," the other stalker replied slowly, nodding. "Are there any camps around here? I'd like a place to rest and check my gear."

"Sure," Siesta nodded. "We were about to head back. You can come with us?" The native Tristainian tried her best not to trip over any words. She quickly realized that was the longest string of Ukrainian she had spoken since leaving the outer regions of the Zone, during her days of working for Sidorovich.

"That would be great actually, thanks."

"Alright," Siesta said, retrieving her Mosin which stood against a nearby tree. She gestured to herself by placing a hand on her chest. "I'm Siesta." She motioned to Louise with a flick of her head. "That's Louise. She doesn't speak Ukrainian."

The stalker ahh'd in understanding before introducing himself with a smile. "My name is Alexander."

* * *

 _A/N: There we have it, the introduction of Alexander Degtyarev, the protagonist of Call of Pripyat. His role will be minimal in this part of the story, but he will likely make a return later. Not much to say about this chapter, Louise is becoming more of a stalker, but she's only early on in her career yet._

 _Also, longest chapter thus far._


	6. Humble Beginnings VI

_Humble Beginnings VI_

 _Zaton_

 _18:30_

It had been four full days since Louise's arrival in the Zone, and she found herself slowly adjusting to the life of a stalker. Suffice it to say, her new life was far from glamorous. Currently, she sat across from Siesta in the bowels of the Skadovsk, half-heartedly nibbling on some bread while the stalker talked. The young mage was quickly coming to realize that Siesta was the kind of person that could talk about anything for hours on end.

The fact that the former maid hadn't been able to have a full-on conversation with anybody in such a long time had probably temporarily turned her into a chatterbox.

"And when he woke up," Siesta was saying. "He couldn't remember anything at all."

"Nothing?" Louise asked, only semi-interested.

"Nope." Siesta took a swig from a can of soda. "All he knew was that he had to kill some guy named Strelok."

After a moment of silence, Louise decided to ask. "Did he?"

Siesta shrugged. "No idea. He did some work for Sidorovich and then I never saw him again."

Louise leaned back in her chair with a sigh. Over the course of the last few days she had heard more than a few stories from the stalker sitting across from her, and she was fairly sure there were enough of them to fill a small book. Louise was never big on storytelling, mostly because she and her elder sisters had been forced to endure countless stories from her father, most of which revolved around hunting or politics.

He had never said it outright, but she knew her father had always wanted a son.

Her mother, on the other hand, tended not to tell stories of her time served with the Mage Knights or the Manticore Corps. At least some of the stories Siesta were telling helped her to gain some insight on the Zone, which was something she could put into practice. She just wished Siesta would tell more stories of things that didn't involve getting extremely intoxicated or smoking strange plants, or of men with amnesia.

Thinking of her parents, she wondered what they were doing right now. Surely the news must have reached them by this time. Did they think she was dead? She had come to the conclusion that it was probably better if they did, that way they could simply move on with their lives instead of aimlessly searching for her when she wasn't even in the same reality as them. Despite thinking that, she still feared how Cattleya would react to the news. They had been quite close.

She had already decided that she would try to find a way back. The only problem was that she simply had no idea where to begin. It would have to wait, there were other things to worry about right now.

Like not being shot, for example.

She was dreading it, and knew it would happen at some point. In a place where so many bullets were flying around it was bound to happen eventually, and she hoped it was going to be later rather than sooner. If it meant that she would never be shot, she would spend an entire day submerged in a tub full of insects.

She laid her hands in her lap and sighed rigidly.

"Loosen up a little kiddo, relax," Siesta said, shuffling her chair backward so she could put her feet up on the table. "You can't have any fun if you're being so uptight all of the time."

Louise was silent for a moment, seemingly contemplating what Siesta had said. At least until she opened her mouth. "Take your feet off the table. It's horrid."

"See? This is what I'm talking about," Siesta groaned, her feet coming off the table. "Nobody in this room cares that I've had my feet on the table. There's nobody here to impress, Louise."

"It's not about impressing anybody," Louise shot back. Siesta was quickly beginning to remind her of Kirche von Zerbst with her laid back and teasing attitude. She even played the part of having two over-sized udders hanging from her chest, something that Louise noted with contempt, and a hint of jealousy. One of her hands subconsciously went to scratch at her own chest, reminding her of the nothingness that dominated it.

 _Flat._

Shaking her head of the thought, Louise decided that it shouldn't matter anymore. There were more important things to focus on. While she was sure that the teasing that had come from Kirche had malicious intent, she knew that Siesta meant no harm when she decided to tease. It was like Siesta had said; she only wanted Louise to loosen up a little.

Then, Louise realized. "You called me by my name just then."

Siesta eyed her with a shrug. "I have a four day rule."

"A four day rule?"

"Yeah. Generally, if somebody isn't dead in their first four days they might be worth something. I figure I'll start using your name now."

"Thank you for that confidence boost," Louise remarked, her voice forced. "It's much appreciated."

Siesta snorted. "You don't do sarcasm very well."

"Normally, sarcasm is unbecoming of a Noblewoman." Louise supposed that this abnormal situation allowed some leeway in her manners. It was like Siesta said, there wasn't anybody around who cared, but that didn't excuse feet on the table. They ate from the table. Feet were dirty.

"You just need practice, that's all," Siesta pointed out.

Louise quickly threw the option of sarcasm practice out the window and groaned loudly in displeasure. "I hate this! We've been in this ship for hours now. It smells in here."

"You'll learn to cherish the times when you're bored," Siesta squeezed the empty soda can and slammed it down on the table. "Would you rather go anomaly diving or something?"

Louise peeked up at the girl across from her, rolling her eyes when she saw the state of the can. "Which one do you propose?"

Letting out a short laugh, Siesta had gotten an answer she hadn't expected. "How about... the burnt farmstead? I don't wanna go too far from the Skadovsk since there hasn't been an emission yet today."

Louise sighed. "The warm one? Disgusting."

"Well we could go to the boiler," Siesta offered with a smirk.

"No, thank you," Louise groaned, stretching her arms. "I believe that one is about a million times worse."

"All right!" Siesta exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm. She stood abruptly and grabbed her rifle from against the wall. Louise shook her head at the stalker's display, noticing many stares coming towards them. "Grab your stuff!"

Louise lifted her shotgun and slung it across her back with an old sling that they had paid Cardan to install. A shotgun on her back, an assault rifle in her hands, a pistol on her side, and the ammunition to run all three certainly made for a noticeable amount weight, but she gladly carried it all. Not only because they made her feel a little safer, but also because Siesta's backpack looked like it was so much heavier. She'd seen nearly every kind of back-packable object removed from it over the last few days.

"We are going to the burnt farmstead, right?" Louise asked as they made for the door. "Because I mean, if you're actually going to the boiler, I'm staying in the ship."

Siesta only laughed.

* * *

 _The Cordon_

 _18:44_

Drifter strolled into the rookie village with fellow stalkers Awl and Tolik. They had spent the last twelve hours sitting on top of a hill observing the activity in the car park before being relieved by another group of stalkers. They were most definitely less than pleased with what they had seen. The area had become infested with snorks, the most snorks either of the three had ever seen in one place. There was easily a dozen crawling in and around the small walled in compound, which got the stalkers worrying.

Snorks were feral creatures, and also one of the more infamous beings to populate the Zone. Extended exposure to radiation and anomalies had destroyed the mind and twisted the body of a human, creating an extremely dangerous predator with a distinct appearance. Their bodies were covered with lesions and open wounds, the most notable being their exposed spine. They still wore the tattered clothes of their human counterparts, usually the uniform of a soldier but occasionally one can be found wearing a bandit's trench coat or a stalker's sunrise suit.

Interestingly, they were always been seen wearing gas masks, with the filter hose darting about to sniff out potential prey. It was almost as if the mask had simply become a part of their face.

Despite their ragged appearance the snork had very powerful muscles and quick reflexes. Their spines had mutated to the point of being unable to support their full body weight, forcing them down on all fours, but they were still able to achieve inhumanly fast movement speeds and could perform long leaps.

While snorks did tend to stick together and form nests, the stalkers had to wonder why they'd chosen the car park as their new home. Their usual nests were in underground areas, such as caves or abandoned underground structures.

"So, you guys want to smoke a joint after?" Awl offered. He rested his Simonov carbine on his shoulder as they strolled through the village. "Watching snorks all day has got to be the worst shit."

"I'm in," Tolik quickly replied, letting his shotgun hang loosely in one hand. He turned to Drifter. "What about you, Drifter?"

"I think Awl has been spending far too much time in the Army Warehouses," Drifter replied, smirking from behind the cloth covering the lower half of his face. "Why not just see Barkeep in Rostok anyway? It's closer."

Awl shrugged. "Freedom's got the good stuff. It's worth the extra walk. Besides, their company is much more pleasant that Duty's."

Tolik nodded in thorough agreement as they came up on the fire in the center of the village. It seemed a group of stalkers were roasting a flesh. Tolik let out a visible shudder.

"What's wrong, Tolik?" Hound asked with a touch of laughter in his voice. He left the fire to greet the trio. "Not big on flesh?"

Tolik shrugged and slipped the balaclava from his head. "I can manage. As long as I don't picture its face while I'm eating it."

Hound glanced over his shoulder as a few stalkers around the fire chuckled at Tolik's comment. He quickly turned his sights on Drifter. "Drifter, Sidorovich said he wanted to see you earlier. I don't know if he still wants you now but, I guess you can check it out if you want."

Drifter gave Hound an odd look. "Did he say why he wanted to see me?"

Hound shook his head. "No, I heard it from Fanatic so I'm not sure why."

"I'll go see the old man then," Drifter moved the selector lever of his AKM to safe before slinging it over his shoulder. He left the group headed down the road towards Sidorovich's bunker. He stopped and turned around when Awl called out to him.

"Drifter! Joint!"

Drifter thought for a moment before waving a hand dismissively. "Another time!" He called back. He watched as Awl shrugged and wandered off with Tolik and Hound in tow. While not against smoking such things, Drifter preferred to be alert and attentive most of the time.

As he continued on he wondered if this had anything to do with the girl from a few nights ago. A few of the other rookies had seen her after she had just woken up, and apparently she only spoke French, which was a shame. The only other stalker he had ever known to speak French was Siesta, and she had left the Rookie Village long ago to parts unknown.

Speaking of Siesta, he had learned from Sidorovich that Siesta wasn't just another stalker as he had previously thought.

The old man hadn't explained much, only that she had apparently arrived in the Zone in the same way that this blonde girl had. He had then promptly kicked Drifter out of his living space.

This was weird. Well, weirder than normal. It was the Zone, after all.

Sidorovich's underground bunker quickly came into view. Drifter peeled back his hood and pulled down the cloth covering his face as he carelessly flew down the stairs. The old man came into view, and it seemed he wasn't tapping away at his computer like he usually was. He merely sat idle, leaning back in his chair with his hands resting on his stomach.

"Drifter," Sidorovich quickly recognized the stalker. "I don't need to see you anymore."

Drifter shrugged and turned around without a word. If Sidorovich didn't have anything for him then it was just less on his mind. He stopped however, when he heard Sidorovich speak again.

"Actually come back, I can think of a good use for you."

Drifter spun back around on his heel. "Don't talk about me like I'm a pair of pliers," he grunted.

Sidorovich let out a gravelly laugh that ended with a few coughs. He reached for a pack of cigarettes on his desk, lighting one. To Drifter, it seemed a little counterproductive if he was coughing like that. "When are you going to watch the snorks again, and with who?"

"Tomorrow morning, with Awl and Tolik," Drifter stated flatly. "Why?"

Sidorovich swiveled his chair around and yelled into the back of the bunker. "Monty! Come here!"

Drifter watched as the blonde girl came out from the back of the bunker looking not at all pleased. Her cape had been removed and now she wore a light grey fawn jacket instead, although her skirt still remained. Her blonde hair now hung straight with a touch of waviness to it.

Drifter snorted. "So her name is Monty? That's kind of weird."

"I'll have you know, that my name is Montmorency," the blonde snapped, surprising Drifter. She glared down at the seated Sidorovich and repeated. "Montmorency! Say it!"

Drifter looked from Montmorency, to Sidorovich, back to the blonde, and then to the old man again. "So she does speak Ukrainian? I heard some of the other stalkers saying she didn't."

Sidorovich shrugged, ignoring Montmorency's demand to say her name properly. "She didn't before, and she does now. I'm not even going to try and pretend I understand why."

Unbeknownst to either of the men, Montmorency had spent the first half a dozen hours after waking up in the Zone feverishly trying to remember the specifics of a spell that would grant her the knowledge of another language. The surprise on the old man's face when she suddenly started snapping at him in his own language was priceless.

"Anyway," Sidorovich continued. "I want you to take her with you when you go out watching the snorks again."

"What!?" Both Montmorency and Drifter exclaimed simultaneously, causing them to both share a glance before Montmorency continued. "Y-you want me to go up there? Outside? U-up those stairs?"

"Yes," Sidorovich flicked cigarette ash into his ashtray. "You can't stay down in this freaking hole forever."

"Oh, but you can?"

"Yes, actually."

While Montmorency shot Sidorovich a piercing glare, Drifter raised an eyebrow. "What have you told her about outside to make her so scared?" He asked.

Montmorency's glare turned to train on the stalker but Sidorovich spoke up first. "You know, how nowhere is safe and everything and everyone wants to kill you. Stuff like that."

Drifter looked to Montmorency for confirmation. Her glare faded as she sighed. "In a nutshell, yes."

The stalker shrugged. "Well, it's worse than that."

"That's not funny!"

Sidorovich laughed, which ended with another series of coughs and a few obscenities. "Anyway, take her with you when you go out, eh?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever man," Drifter replied unenthusiastically. "I'll train up your rookie. I'll come get her before we leave tomorrow morning."

"Good man! Now get out of here."

Drifter and turned to leave, only to stop after he remembered something. "Oh right, you, Monty, whatever your name is."

"Montmorency!" She corrected.

"Uh, you should really think about wearing pants."

* * *

"Here, catch!"

Louise saw the fireball artifact soar through the air towards her like a thrown stone. She yelped desperately, holding her hands out to catch as she backpedaled towards where she best predicted the artifact would land. She met it just in time, forgoing her hands altogether as she caught it against her chest with her arms.

She then realized that she was about to lose her balance. Louise fell over backward onto her bottom.

"Honestly?" Louise remarked with distain in her voice. "What if I had missed that?"

"Relax," Siesta approached with a wide grin. The sight did little to douse the agitation Louise felt for the stalker. "Fireballs aren't really that fragile. I won't throw something at you that could explode or melt your skin or something."

"Whatever," Louise spat. She rose to her feet and deposited the fireball into a canvas bag. They had managed to find a few artifacts in the sizable burner field. "Are there any more around?"

"I'll check," Siesta brandished her detector and walked about the area with it held out in front of her. Louise watched with mild interest as she idle swung the bag of artifacts back and forth lightly. Siesta returned moments later. "Nah. Let's get out of here."

"Great. I've been sweating so much I feel like I'm floating in my shoes," Louise groaned. After they left the heat of the deadly anomaly field, Louise stopped Siesta by holding out the bag of artifacts. "Hey. Can you hold this for a minute?"

"Why?"

"Well," Louise looked off to the side of the road. "That big rock over there is surrounded by trees and bushes and looks really nice right now."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Siesta asked, confused. "You have to pee or something?"

Louise sighed. "Yes, Siesta. I have to pee."

"Oh," Siesta shrugged and took the bag from Louise's hands. "Well, go on."

Louise nodded and swiftly made for the rock. "And don't look over here!"

Siesta didn't respond as she turned to face away. Deciding to keep occupied while Louise was doing her business, Siesta sunk her hand into the bag of artifacts and brought out the recently acquired fireball. It had a smooth, glossy surface and gave off enough heat that Siesta felt it easily through her gloved hand.

Behind the rock, Louise sighed happily as she secured her belt around her waist. She didn't enjoy having to do her business in some bushes behind a rock, but it would have to do. She turned to grab her carbine, which she had leant against the rock itself, only to freeze when an ominous growl cut through the air. She listened, and was terrified to hear heavy breathing coming from nearby. She quickly grabbed up the Kalashnikov, flicked the selector lever to automatic, and held it at her waist.

The bushes in front of her were rustled by an unseen force. Louise started with a shrill squeak. She began to back away, ready to release a burst of lead onto any horrid creature that would show its face. As she moved backwards she noticed something disturbing. A roughly humanoid shadow was cast on the ground in front of her, but there was no such figure to cast it. She looked up to where the figure would logically be standing and saw nothing, other than a cloud of breath that seemed to come from nowhere.

She swallowed. Something invisible was standing in front of her. She could feel it staring at her.

She tried to call out to Siesta, but her voice only came out as a pathetic croak. She was absolutely petrified, a feeling that grew worse with every heavy breath that came out of whatever was in front of her.

And then suddenly, it moved. She knew it moved, because it seemed to just melt into existence as it lunged forward. There was only one word she could think of in her frightened state that could describe this creature.

Horrifying.

It was humanoid, in an incredibly broad sense of the word. Its skin was leathery and brown, its limbs were lanky and wiry with hands ending in wicked claws that looked sharp enough to rend flesh with disturbing ease, and its face was just something straight out of a nightmare; a gaping maw that was surrounded by four tentacles spread wide as it released a piercing shriek. The creature was completed with a long, gaunt face, featuring lambent eyes housed in sunken eye sockets; two glowing white spots that burned bright with predatory fury.

In her steadily increasing state of fear Louise's body had locked up and was now rooted to where she stood. It seemed that whatever this thing was, it was going to have its way with her. As it cocked an arm back and swept it forward, Louise's brain still had enough sense to tell her index finger to tighten on the Kalashnikov's trigger.

The gun spat out a short burst, but Louise had no idea if she had hit the creature or not. The moment she had pulled the trigger the creature's hand had connected with her face, sending her reeling to the ground.

On her back she fired again into open air. The creature had vanished.

She stayed on the ground with her carbine pointed straight up, completely disoriented. The whole situation had probably only lasted about five seconds, but to her it felt like everything was moving in slow motion. She knew she should get on her feet, she knew she should run, but her body refused to obey her commands. She couldn't focus. Her head felt like it had just been smashed against a stone wall. She could hear footsteps approaching quickly, and hoped with all her heart that it was Siesta.

"What the fuck happened to your face!?" Siesta cried as she neared with rifle ready. She reached down and grabbed Louise by her upper arm, deftly hoisting her to her feet. Louise immediately felt much safer with Siesta around. "C'mon! Up!"

"Invisible!" Louise shakily readied her weapon. "Oh God it was bloody invisible!"

The information took only milliseconds to process in Siesta's brain. "Shit."

"Do you know what it is?" Louise asked, followed by a wince. The shock had begun to pass and the right side of her face throbbed painfully. She felt her stomach churn as the pain in her head grew worse. The urge to vomit had made itself known. "My face really hurts. Does it look bad?"

"Let's get away from these trees and stuff," Siesta ignored Louise's question for now. She pointed to the ground a few feet away, directing Louise's eyes to spy some spatters of blood. "Did you hit it?"

"I-I don't know," Louise strained out as she followed Siesta towards the road. She tenderly brought a hand up to her face, and quickly brought it away with a hiss of pain. She swallowed. Her hand had come back almost completely red. She saw that her coat was also dotted with blood that had dripped off of her jawline. "Siesta... is it bad? My face? It really hurts."

"I won't lie, you're bleeding a lot," Siesta admitted as they reached the road and stopped. She scanned the area with her rifle ready while Louise copied her moves. "But you'll live. You seriously have no idea how lucky you – there!"

Louise started as Siesta's rifle discharged. She whirled around to aim. Siesta's shot had torn through the creature's stomach above a set of gunshot wounds it had already received courtesy of Louise. The shock of having a bullet pass through its body caused the creature to become visible, however despite being shot, it still charged towards them with a shriek of anger and pain.

Louise released a torrent of lead from her short-barreled Kalashnikov along with a yell comprised of a mix of fright and anger. The creature tumbled forward as the needle-like 5.45mm rounds tore through its torso. Louise kept the weapon firing as it fell and stopped only because her magazine had run dry. They both stared at it for a few moments as it lay motionless on the ground.

There was a brief silence as the two girls both stared.

"Is... is it dead?" Louise asked tenderly. She started again as Siesta opted to send another bullet down the barrel of her Mosin and into the creature's head.

"Dead now," Siesta remarked as she shrugged her backpack off, and tore it open. She extracted what seemed to be a handful of white pieces of cloth. She quickly approached Louise and pressed the cloth strips against her face, which elicited a shriek of pain. "Just hold that on your face until we get to the Skadovsk."

"You would make a horrible healer," Louise pointed out, although she did what she was told. "What in the Founder's name was that thing?"

"Bloodsucker," Siesta quickly threw her backpack on and topped off her rifle's magazine. She grabbed up the canvas bag of artifacts that she had simply dropped on the ground and slung the sack over her shoulder. "The name pretty much says it all."

Louise followed behind the stalker as she started off down the road. "It doesn't quite explain how it was invisible – God it hurts!" Tears of pain quickly began to well up in her eyes.

"Well I can't explain that," Siesta threw a glance at the girl behind her, finding that blood was already soaking through the cloth. She frowned. "You're actually so lucky right now, you have no idea."

"How exactly is this lucky?" Louise asked, disbelieving. She kept the bundle of cloth pressed against her face. She absolutely did not want to look in a mirror right now. Louise could now easily feel three gashes across her right cheek, pulsing painfully with each beat of her heart. One was dangerously close to her eye, flaring in hot pain every time she blinked. "I've had half of my face torn off by something that has the face of a-a-a squid!"

Siesta laughed, doing little to make Louise feel any better. "That was a good one. Squid face. I'll remember that. But seriously." Siesta turned around and walked backwards in front of Louise. "Lucky as all hell, you are. I've seen one of those tear a man's head right off his shoulders without even trying. You must have ruined its attack by shooting it."

"It still gave me quite a wallop, you know."

"That it did. If it had knocked you out you'd have been done for," Siesta remarked, turning to walk properly. "Now let's get you back to the Skadovsk. Tremor will fix you right up."

"Fix me? My face has been – ow! – destroyed beyond repair! How am I going to live with this? I'll have scars – ugh! - for the rest of my life!"

Siesta rolled her eyes. "Oh my God, it's seriously not that bad. Have you never had a cut and a smack before? Besides, some people think scars are attractive. I know I do."

"You are not helping."

* * *

Hours later, in the bowels of the Skadovsk, Louise sat in her usual place across from Siesta. The majority of the right side of her face was covered in bandages, not-so tenderly applied by Tremor. The rest of her face was covered in a dark scowl, directed down at the wooden surface of the table.

Siesta felt that the silence between them had become annoying. "You want a drink or something?"

"Not really," Louise growled quietly. Her eyes did not leave the table, nor did her mouth move quite as much as it would normally.

"There's no reason for you to get all bent out of shape," Siesta chided, leaning forward. "If were you I'd be celebrating having been within three feet of one of those things and still being alive. Bloodsuckers are freaking nasty."

"It's not that," Louise winced as she spoke. The pain right now was just too much, and moving her face was only making it worse. "As far as I'm concerned that thing and myself are even. It hit me across the face, so I shot it – a lot. What I'm 'bent out of shape' about is that man who's calling himself a doctor."

Siesta laughed. "Tremor? Don't tell me he's gotten to you. I know he's a bit of an asshole, but he knows what he's doing."

"That may be," Louise balled her tiny hands into fists. "But he was very rough with my destroyed face, and I... I don't appreciate it!" This got another laugh out of Siesta. "Stop laughing! You said he was going to give me something for the pain, and he did no such thing!"

Siesta continued to laugh for a few moments while the fuming pink-haired girl opted to simply cross her arms and look away. Not only was Louise upset about the mistreatment of her injured face, she was also apprehensive about the scars the three long gashes were going to leave behind. She had seen them in the mirror. They were hideous. The shortest was closest to her eye and luckily ended only centimeters away. The longest was in the middle, and it stretched from her ear almost all the way to the corner of her mouth.

"You've gotta lose that attitude of yours," Siesta pointed out seriously.

"My attitude?" Louise was in disbelief, and was certainly not in the mood to banter with this woman. "My attitude is perfectly fine! It's great! Nothing wrong with it! Yours on the other hand..."

Siesta's face took on a dark light as she crossed her arms. She leaned back in the chair. "Alright, what's wrong with my attitude then?"

Louise opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again as she rethought her words. Not only did the change in Siesta's face unsettle her, there was also the fact that Siesta seemed to be a genuinely good person who was unwillingly stuck in this living hell. "Well, you're not selfish or-or inconsiderate or anything... I-I'm sure that without your help I'd have been killed already, a-and you've been teaching me things that are useful a-a-and I... well, um..."

"How touching. Right in my feelings," Siesta remarked dryly, placing a hand over her heart.

Louise glared. "Shut up! You're also rude, you swear far too much, you don't even attempt to be discreet about your belching or... f-f-f-flatulence, and - you keep doing that!" Louise pointed with disgust at what Siesta had begun doing. "Stop picking your bloody nose!"

Siesta pulled her finger from her nose and made a flicking motion towards Louise, who promptly leapt from her chair and out of the way. "I'll do what I want with my nose and my finger, thanks."

"You just flicked that at me!" Louise's hand flew up to her face as pain shot through her cheek. "Disgusting! Pig!"

Siesta glanced around to find that nobody really seemed to be taking notice of their exchange. This time in the evening was when the Skadovsk was most lively, so they went largely unnoticed. "I didn't actually flick anything, relax. You sure you don't want a drink? I can get you something that'll definitely help with the pain since its making you so grouchy."

Louise hesitantly returned to her seat with a stiff sigh. "If you say so, then I'll have it."

"Great!" Siesta chirped excitedly. She practically leaped from her seat and jogged across the room. It didn't take her long to return with two glasses of clear liquid.

"This is what you drink sometimes, isn't it?" Louise asked, receiving a nod from the stalker. She furrowed her brow in confusion. "What is it? I thought it was just water."

A sly smile spread across the stalker's face. "No, it's good. Try it."

Louise shrugged and sipped on the liquid, only to spit it out instantly. "Disgusting! Are you trying to poison me? What is this?"

Siesta hooted with laughter. "It's vodka!"

"What?"

"Alcohol!"

"Surely you jest," Louise groaned. She came to a quick realization. "So you've been drunk this entire time? Brilliant."

"It takes the edge off," Siesta admitted, flapping a hand. Seeing Louise's expression of disbelief, Siesta realized that she hadn't caught on to the fact that she was joking. Siesta sighed. Nobles always had terrible senses of humor. "I don't get drunk that often. I only have like, one glass a day, and it's usually watered down."

"This is watered down?" Louise asked, making a noise of disgust.

Siesta laughed. "Oh, yours isn't."

"Cretin," Louise disregarded Siesta's state of sobriety for the time being. "Well, I suppose alcohol would help dull the pain."

"Exactly," Siesta took a generous swig from her glass. Louise looked down and tenderly sipped from hers. To say that it wasn't as nice as wine was a gross understatement. She forced the liquid down her throat and prayed that it would help, even if it were only a little.

The next half hour passed slowly as Louise timidly sipped on the vodka while Siesta talked on and on. The sensation of pain soon became pleasantly dulled, although the side effect was that she had become a little tipsy. To her embarrassment, she started to slur as her coordination took a nose dive. She had never actually gotten drunk before. Was this what it was like? She looked up from her glass when she noticed somebody standing behind Siesta with a curious stare at her bandaged face. She vaguely recognized him in her inebriated state. Was he the man they'd met in the woods a couple of days ago?

"Siesta," Alexander began. "What happened to your little friend's face?"

Siesta laughed and consequently received a glare from Louise. She couldn't understand their conversation, but Louise had a feeling it was about her face.

"She got attacked by a bloodsucker when she was peeing in a bush," Siesta explained with a smirk. "And that's all she escaped with. Lucky girl, huh?"

Alexander nodded in agreement. "Yeah. I came to ask you something."

"You just did though."

"Funny," Alexander snorted, seeing the cheeky smirk on Siesta's face. "But really, Grouse and I were wondering if you were interested in some work."

"Work?" Siesta found her curiosity piqued. "What kind?"

"It's about the bloodsuckers."

* * *

 _A/N: Stay tuned for chapter seven, in which Louise and Siesta investigate the bloodsucker situation, and things get interesting._


	7. Humble Beginnings VII

_Humble Beginnings VII_

 _Zaton_

 _07:21_

A brisk morning breeze swept through Louise's hair as she stood on the Skadovsk's deck. She leaned on the railing, her cheek resting on one hand while the other played with the end of her ponytail. She gazed to the north, paying rapt attention to the sky. An emission had ended not long ago and Louise was enthralled by what it had left behind.

The northern horizon was alight in a fiery orange. Ribbons of the same color stretched across the sky and arced through the emission's fading clouds, creating a deep orange glow that dominated most of the morning skyline. Louise couldn't have imagined a sky like this in a thousand years. It was horrifying, yet beautiful at the same time. She wished she was a competent artist because she would definitely paint this scene, although it might be a touch pointless. It's not like she could show it to anybody who cared.

Besides, she couldn't draw worth a damn.

Louise noticed she wasn't the only one on deck. There was a hooded stalker puffing away on a cigarette. She didn't know his name, and couldn't very well find out anyway due to the language barrier. He didn't seem to care about her presence anyway.

She stood straight and arched her back in a stretch. The aurora was beginning to fade into daylight as the clouds dispersed. If it were night, this would have been the best part. The color of the aurora against a clear night sky was a breathtaking sight. At least, she thought so.

Louise decided that it was best if she head back inside. Today was going to be busy.

* * *

"Alright," Grouse stopped and turned to face the small group that consisted of Siesta, Louise, and Alexander. "Down that road is the antenna complex," he pointed, drawing the group's eyes. The flat building was visible through the trees and its perimeter was surrounded by evenly spaced antenna arrays. The antenna complex was aptly named, and Louise recognized the place. She had noticed it when Siesta had taken her to the oakpine anomaly for the first time.

Grouse continued. "And if we continue up the road we'll reach the old gas station. Danila was sent out by Gonta to check out the oakpine area for any signs of the bloodsucker lair. That was three days ago, and he hasn't been seen or heard of since." Grouse turned to Siesta. "You should take Louise, since you're the only one who can talk to her. Check out the gas station and move down to the oakpine. Alexander and I will start at the antenna complex and we'll work our way up. Sound good?"

Siesta and Alexander both nodded, while Louise was lost on the conversation. She impatiently wanted Siesta to clue her in on what was happening, but Grouse continued speaking.

"Be careful around the gas station. That's bordering on bandit territory, and those assholes are the last thing we need to deal with right now."

Alexander removed a small hand radio from his vest, flicking it on. "You've got a radio, right?"

Siesta nodded again and removed her radio from a tight pocket on her vest. They set their radios to the same frequency and did a quick check. Alexander and Grouse split off from the group, with the latter calling out that they would be in contact if they found anything. Siesta motioned for Louise to follow.

"Wait, where are they going?" Louise asked. "What's going on?"

Remembering that Louise couldn't understand any of the conversation that was just had, Siesta quickly paraphrased what Grouse had said, and Louise stopped in her tracks.

Siesta stopped as well, and looked. "What?"

"B-bandits?" Louise stammered. She clutched at the Kalashnikov nervously. "Are you sure that's a good idea, to go so close to their territory?"

Siesta bit her lip and continued walking. "Relax, alright? We're only going to poke around the gas station real quick to see if Danila's body is there. We're not starting a war."

Louise frowned. "Don't you think that's a rather grim way to talk about it? Saying we're only looking for his body. What if he's still alive?"

Siesta scoffed bitterly. "I wouldn't count on it."

They continued up the winding road in silence, and their destination came into view quickly. Louise looked the place over, and decided that this 'gas station' was a complete mess. All of the windows in the small building were broken, an old jeep still remained under the canopy next to a fuel pump, and worryingly, the ground around the area was dramatically split open. In some areas it was only a few feet wide, but in others it seemed to be nearly ten meters across. Louise peered over the edge, and quickly stepped back with her eyes wide.

If the chasm had a bottom to it, Louise definitely couldn't see it.

"This place is a mess," Louise commented, voicing her thoughts. She followed Siesta over the only section of solid ground that seemed to be connecting the gas station to the rest of Zaton, and immediately felt awkward. The entire area was listing slightly, and was something that was once noticed could not be unnoticed.

Siesta nodded her agreement as she walked over to the dilapidated jeep, an old UAZ. She delivered a light kick to the driver's side wheel – which was flat like the rest – and peered inside the cabin.

"I've been meaning to ask you something," Louise said, approaching Siesta from behind. "Actually I've been meaning to ask you a million different things, but since we're here. " Louise pointed to the jeep. "I've been seeing things like these here and there, what are they?"

"Oh, these are cars," Siesta said casually. "They're like carriages, only they don't need horses to move around."

"What?" Louise narrowed her eyes in confusion. "No horses? How do they move then? Magic? But you said there was no magic in this crazy world, so how is it possible?"

Siesta slapped a hand down on the rusted bonnet. "There's a thing in here called an engine. It works on explosions and has pistons and stuff. It makes power that turns the wheels."

"En-jin?" Louise pronounced. She bent down to gaze through the radiator grill. This thing worked on explosions? Louise snorted. How could something operate on explosions? "I don't believe you. If it's true then make it move."

Siesta shot her a flat look. "There's no way this one works, just look at it. It's junk."

"Well then you've got no proof, so I don't believe you."

"Hey! I've seen one being driven, in fact." Siesta puffed out her chest proudly in a dramatic gesture. "I've driven one."

Louise was silent for a moment. "You're a liar, Siesta."

"I'm not a liar!" Siesta protested with a childish pout. "It was back when Freedom had their base in the Dark Valley, Wolf and I were..."

"Wait, wait," Louise cut in. "Who had what where?"

Siesta quickly waved her off. "Never mind. Anyway..."

Louise resigned herself to listen to what ever strange story Siesta was going to spout. Once the stalker started, she couldn't be stopped.

Siesta continued as she moved towards the gas station's building. "I was with another stalker called Wolf, and we were up in the Dark Valley doing some work for Freedom. They had an old car like that one that still worked. They were doing some trading with the scientists out in Yantar; they wanted a shitload of canned beans delivered out there. It was way too much to carry by hand, so they paid us to drive it over there."

They entered the building. Siesta drew her sidearm, and Louise held her Kalashnikov tightly, ready for anything to jump at them.

"Right," Louise breathed skeptically. "So if these people needed these canned beans to be there, why didn't they just do it themselves?"

"Well because it's super dangerous, obviously," Siesta replied, sweeping into the next room. The building appeared to be empty. "Freedom doesn't want to put their own guys in danger for some stupid canned beans, so they contract stuff like that out to regular stalkers like us. They pay pretty good too."

"So... what exactly does this have to do with you driving a car?"

"Wolf taught me how to drive it." Siesta shrugged, and grinned. "It was pretty great. They can go really fast."

They exited the building through a rear entrance. Out here there were sections of collapsed chain link fence and more deep chasms in the ground. Most of the fence seemed to have fallen in the pit of doom, but the large cylindrical propane tank had yet to join them, although it did seem to be in a precarious position.

"Well I'm sure you had a wonderful time," Louise remarked, her iron-clad grip on the Kalashnikov loosening. "If I ever see one of these moving someday, I think I might believe you."

"Forget you." Siesta shot Louise a look of discontent. "Anyway there's nothing here, just some holes in the ground and a bunch of garbage."

Louise sighed. "To the oakpine then?"

"To the oakpine!" Siesta exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm. She took off at a brisk place with a finger in the air.

Louise rolled her eyes and followed after the stalker. Siesta certainly had energy, especially early in the morning. She had noticed that Siesta always slept through the entire night, not even waking up when violent emissions swept across the Zone.

The pink-haired Noble could hardly manage to sleep a wink. When the emissions ravaged the land, she woke. When somebody strolled down the hallway their secluded room was in, she woke. When Siesta grunted incoherently in her sleep, Louise woke.

And then there was the matter of the nightmares.

Louise only called them nightmares because the dreams she had during the night scared the absolute living shit out of her, though she would never word it that way if anybody were to ask. They weren't like any dreams she had experienced before. The specifics faded quickly after she was awake, but they always went the same way. Images flashed through her mind faster than she could count. People she had never met, places where she had never been. She felt fear, terror, and sorrow all in one. She saw her own death dozens of times over, rotting corpses littering fields, violent eruptions of smoke and fire.

The worst was when she saw the man reaching for her. It was just a hand at first, but then she could see the face...

It was the most horrifying face she had ever seen. It was burned into her memory.

When she had told Siesta about the dreams, the former maid wasn't surprised in the least. She had told Louise that everybody in the Zone had dreams like that. Some people got over them, some just got used to it, and some were driven mad.

They cut directly through the woods, weaving through trees and brush until the twisted oakpine anomaly came into view.

"Just look around," Siesta made a sweeping gesture with her arm. "See if you can find anything."

"What exactly am I looking for?"

"I told you, Danila's dead body. Or, what's left of it."

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that," Louise split off from Siesta without another word. The two of them poked around the area, checking in bushes and around trees. It didn't take long for Louise to bump something with her foot between some bushes. She glanced down and immediately felt her blood run cold.

It wasn't Danila's corpse. That she was sure of, unless Danila was actually a bloodsucker and neglected to tell anybody.

"Oh god," Louise muttered, covering her nose with her sleeve as the stench of death wafted up at her. The bloodsucker appeared to have been shot an unnecessary amount of times. Its torso was dotted with over a dozen gunshot wounds, but Louise knew she couldn't criticize. The first and only bloodsucker she had killed had been on the receiving end of the majority of a thirty round magazine.

Her excuse: she was scared, but who wouldn't have been?

"Siesta!" Louise called, turning her head. She couldn't see the dark-haired stalker anywhere, but she had to be close by. "I found something!"

True to Louise's thoughts, Siesta bounded out from around a grove of trees with her rifle clenched. When they were met, Louise pointed down to the corpse with the barrel of her carbine. Siesta let out a noise of disgust. "Gross."

"Do you think it was Danila that killed it?" Louise asked, eagerly stepping away from the body.

"Hell if I know. Anybody could have shot this thing."

As if on cue, Siesta's radio buzzed to life. Siesta was merely brought to attention, while Louise was sincerely startled at the disembodied voice.

 _"Siesta, do you copy?"_

Siesta fumbled at her radio before she found a solid grip. "Uh, yeah. Copy."

 _There was a moment of silence before the radio crackled again. "Grouse and I found something at the antenna complex, meet us there."_

"Yeah, sure," Siesta realized moments later that something along the lines of 'roger that' would have been more appropriate, but it wasn't like they were professionals or anything. She looked to Louise, whose mouth was agape in disbelief. "What?"

"H-how!?" Louise sputtered, pointing straight at the radio still in Siesta's hand. "Was that Alexander? How... what is that thing?"

"It's a radio. You can use it to talk to somebody far away," Siesta explained as she returned the radio to its pocket. "Why are you so surprised now? We did a radio check before we split up."

"Yes, but... w-well we were all there so it didn't occur to me... I didn't really know what you were doing. Founder that's amazing! He's all the way somewhere else, and you were talking to him like he was right here!"

Siesta shrugged. "Even if this is such a horrible place they've got some pretty amazing stuff."

Louise wished she could see this world outside of the Zone. She was sure it was filled with wonderful machines and technology, and not dreadful bloodsucking creatures and mindless zombies with machine guns.

Maybe what Siesta had said about the car was true? Fast ground transportation without the use of horses? That would be revolutionary. Sure, she liked horseback riding, but the thought of some device traveling the countryside with nary a horse to be seen was an alluring idea.

"Anyway," Siesta continued. "Come on, let's go meet our dates."

Louise grumbled as she followed after the former maid. Her cheeks flushed a little. "Could you not say it that way? That's weird."

"Why?" Siesta queried, sounding genuinely stumped. "You don't think either of them would like me? I think Alexander's cute." She glanced over her shoulder at Louise. "What do you think?"

Louise looked away. "Well, he certainly has that ruggedness about him..." Her train of thought quickly changed course. "B-but we're not here for that!"

Siesta laughed. "No kidding. We're here because our luck is basically equal to dog shit. That was something else I wanted to talk to you about. Getting in a relationship here would be a pretty bad idea."

"W-what makes you think I'd do that?" Louise sputtered.

Siesta snorted. "Because we're people? People fall in love with other people, it happens."

"Don't you mean a man falls in love with a woman, or vice versa?"

"I guess. Have an open mind, would you?"

Louise stared at Siesta's back with wide eyes. "A-a-are you saying you l-l-like girls?"

Siesta rested her rifle on her shoulder, and snorted. "I'm just saying you should have an open mind. If two women or two men fall in love with each other, who are we to judge?"

"B-b-but..."

"The point I'm making," Siesta cut in. "Is that falling for somebody here won't end well. What if they go out and get killed? People die every day in the Zone."

After considering for a while longer that perhaps it wouldn't hurt to have an open mind, Louise realized Siesta did have a point. "Are... are you speaking from experience?"

Siesta screwed up her face. "No. I don't think I've ever been in love."

Louise wondered if Siesta was lying. She didn't feel like prying though, and she didn't have the time. They were now coming up on the antenna complex.

But as they crossed over the fallen fence, Louise found herself realizing that Siesta hadn't specifically responded about her sexual preference. Louise immediately threw that thought out. That really didn't matter.

They found Grouse and Alexander standing at the concrete base of an antenna array. "We saw two bloodsuckers enter that building," the latter explained, motioning to the building with a flick of his head. "Could be their lair, but we aren't sure."

Siesta's brow furrowed. She pointed. "In there?"

Grouse nodded with an apprehensive look crossing his face. "We're going to check it out. Coming?"

In Siesta's opinion, she didn't have a choice. She nodded.

As they started off towards the building Siesta slung her Mosin onto her back and drew her pistol. Grouse brandished a pistol-gripped Remington 870, and Alexander readied his own short-barreled Kalashnikov. Siesta felt a tug on her sleeve, and sighed. She'd done it again.

"What is going on?" Louise growled, following. "I'd like to be filled in, you know."

"Grouse and Alexander think the bloodsucker lair might be in this building, so we're going to check it out," Siesta explained in a hushed tone. Her attitude had turned serious, and Louise subsequently realized this as her eyes widened in fear. Siesta gave her a light smack on the arm. "C'mon, get your gun ready."

Louise hastily did so, and slid the selector down to automatic. She realized that her shotgun might work well in a situation like this, but she felt extremely uncomfortable with having only two shots before reloading. She let out a quiet and bitter chuckle.

Flintlocks seemed so useless now. How could you fight off bloodsuckers with one of those? You'd have one shot and then you would end up as an afternoon snack.

Grouse activated a flashlight mounted to the magazine tube of his shotgun as they moved inside, and Alexander did the same with one lashed to the forend of his Kalashnikov. Inside the antenna complex's main building it was seriously dark. Louise knew she and Siesta were without such devices, and were going to have to rely on the men for their light.

At least, that's what Louise had thought until a cone of light sprung forth from Siesta's left hand. She must have had a small flashlight somewhere on her person. Louise heaved a sigh.

She would have to rely on everyone else for their light.

From what Louise could see, the building was incredibly run down. Garbage littered the floors, paint peeled off the mouldy walls, and large electrical cabinets along with racks of computer equipment were left to collect dust. The computer racks lined the middle of the lengthy hallway they found themselves in, dividing the area into two lanes.

Louise frowned. Did everywhere in the Zone have to be so weird? What purpose did all of these things serve?

Siesta and Grouse headed up the group, while Louise and Alexander took up the rear. Siesta looked over her shoulder and noticed that Alexander moved differently from everyone else. While it was different, it was also quite familiar. It reminded her of how the military's soldiers moved around. She frowned. No encounters with the military were ever on friendly terms, but it did give her some comfort. Perhaps Alexander genuinely knew what he was doing.

An empty soda can was knocked, echoing out as it rolled from its hiding place behind an electrical cabinet. Everyone stopped at the same time, their eyes drawn. Despite the fact that everybody had stopped, a very foreboding noise was coming from nearby.

Bare feet slapping on the stone tiled flooring. Everybody tensed.

And then it came. Alexander was the first to react to the low-pitched growl from behind. He whirled around, and his flashlight cast a humanoid shadow on the floor. The cloaked bloodsucker hissed at the sudden introduction of light to its retinas, before its shadow darted back into the cover of a computer rack and was gone.

No words needed saying now. They all knew to be ready now, or risk a swift disembowelling.

Louise let out shallow and ragged breaths, coming out in clouds in the darkness. She did her damnedest to keep them as quiet as possible, even though she knew all the same that there was no point. The bloodsuckers were here, and they were on the hunt. Louise froze when she heard the computer rack next to her groan under pressure, accompanied by heavy breaths coming from above. The pink-haired girl tenderly looked up into the darkness.

It seemed that in the dark a bloodsucker's glowing eyes were quite visible even if it were cloaked.

The Kalashnikov stayed at hip-level as Louise sprayed lead wildly. Her shrill cry was almost drowned out when compared to the overpowering noise of exploding gunpowder. The bloodsucker's angered hisses were all but lost as well while the carbine chattered away. Her ears rang, deafened. Louise hadn't realized how loud a gun would be inside a building, and she definitely hadn't considered how the low light would have an effect. Most of the time it was just smoke that poured from the muzzle of her weapon, an exceedingly small amount of smoke when mentally compared with the thick clouds that muskets left hanging in the air. But now, bright fireballs spewed forth from the end of the Kalashnikov's muzzle that burned at Louise's eyes with each blinding flash.

The computer rack toppled over backward as its thin metal structure finally gave way under the bloodsucker's weight. Feral cries of anguish were easily heard when Louise's magazine ran dry, and flashlights revealed one very perforated bloodsucker squirming on the floor. A single blast from Grouse's shotgun ended its suffering.

They stared at the body for only a moment, because Siesta promptly spun around and fired her pistol. Her flashlight illuminated a bloodsucker charging in for a kill. Her pistol's bullets tore into its chest and it began to stumble, but it was still coming nonetheless. Grouse's shotgun barked again, practically flooring the creature as the buckshot tore its head wide open.

Grouse topped off his shotgun's magazine tube with two bright red shells. He glanced at Siesta, who was swapping magazines. "Tough bastards, eh?"

Siesta's only response was to shake her head in distaste. Louise breathed deeply and locked a full magazine into her carbine with shaking hands.

"Well that was two," Alexander observed, still standing ready. "I don't hear any more."

Grouse took the lead again. "Let's keep looking around."

They completed a full lap of the square building. All they were able to come up with were more electrical cabinets, computer racks, and a few ransacked offices behind shattered glass walls. There was no sign of Danila or any more bloodsuckers on the ground floor. As they neared a set of stairs they had passed on their first time around, Alexander pointed.

"Are we going to check the basement?"

Grouse nodded and lead the group down a wide set of stairs into the bowels of the antenna complex. The downstairs was a similar affair to the floor above, only there were more offices and it was much darker. Poking through the rooms yielded nothing more than trash.

Louise followed Siesta as she split off from the men, who were busy ransacking an office. She approached a set of double doors that looked a little strange to Louise. There was no visible way for them to be opened by hand. Siesta placed a hand over the seam between the two doors and released a drawn out hum.

"What's with these doors, I don't see any..." Louise trailed off as Siesta suddenly darted away. "H-hey, what are you doing?"

"Just wait there!" Siesta called back, walking over to the other end of the room. From what Louise could see from the stalker's flashlight, she seemed to have approached one of the computer racks set against the wall and was now fiddling with it. Suddenly, Siesta's flashlight fell to the floor and the rack came crashing down. "Shit!"

"What the hell is going on out there?" Grouse called out, clearly annoyed, but his voice carried an edge of concern all the same.

"It's fine!" Siesta shouted back. She picked up her flashlight and came back to Louise.

"You're really something, you know that?" Louise commented dryly. She covered her eyes with an annoyed click of her tongue as Siesta pointed the flashlight towards her face. "Why did you go over there and do that anyway?"

Siesta held up a narrow, flat piece of metal for Louise to see. It seemed to have been removed from the computer rack's frame.

"And what purpose does that serve?" Louise asked impatiently.

Siesta held out the flashlight towards Louise. "Just hold this okay? Give me some light too."

Louise held the flashlight and watched as Siesta wedged the flat piece of metal into the seam between the doors. "So, what is this thing anyway?"

"This is an elevator," Siesta grunted. She swore under her breath, seeing that she was making minimal progress.

"I actually meant what I'm holding in my hand, but that's interesting too."

Siesta let out a chuckle, strained from the physical exertion she was putting out. "What would you call it?"

"I don't know. Maybe a... directional torch?"

Siesta stopped what she was doing, and let out a quiet laugh as she leaned onto the elevator doors. "You're not very creative, are you?"

Louise scowled. "I'll admit that creativity is not my strong suit."

"It's a flashlight, you doorknob."

Louise didn't respond, aside from a small huff of annoyance. Siesta continued to work at the elevator doors until she eventually created enough space between them to fit both her hands. She promptly discarded her makeshift tool and began prying the doors apart with her hands. Siesta didn't open them all the way, but there was certainly enough space to walk through.

But that might have been a poor choice. Louise had been expecting a room on the other side of the doors, but there simply wasn't. Instead, it was a narrow shaft that extended up and down.

"What's that?" Louise pointed down, seeing what to her was a large metal box suspended by taught metal cables.

"That's the elevator."

"So what does an elevator do?"

"It..." Siesta paused, thinking. "Well, it elevates." She flattened her hand horizontally and moved it up and down to illustrate.

Louise groaned at the unintended sass. "Well said, truly."

"It's weird though," Siesta took the flashlight from Louise and began highlighting various aspects of the elevator shaft. "Elevators are usually used as an alternative to stairs, obviously. The floor above us looks like it's the top of the shaft, and the actual elevator is sitting one floor below us." Siesta glanced at Louise. "Were these people really so lazy that they couldn't walk down a couple sets of stairs? Unless this place goes super deep into the ground."

"How should I know?"

Siesta huffed and shook her head. Louise gave her a weird look as the former maid decided to pocket her flashlight.

And then Louise got a bad feeling. "Siesta, what are you doing?" She asked apprehensively.

Louise didn't get an answer because Siesta suddenly jumped into the pitch-dark elevator shaft. A heavy thud echoed up that could only be the sound of Siesta hitting the elevator's roof.

"Are you insane!?" Louise shrieked furiously into the dark. "Actually, don't even answer that. I already know the answer!"

Siesta laughed heartily as she found her footing atop the elevator. Louise found her area illuminated once again as Alexander and Grouse approached.

"What's with all the yelling out here? Where the hell did Siesta go?" Grouse asked, only to receive a blank stare from Louise. He shook his head, remembering the little girl couldn't understand him. "Si-es-ta?"

Louise nodded, and pointed down into the elevator shaft.

Grouse narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"I'm down here!" Siesta called out. Grouse moved to shine his light into the shaft, sighing as he spied Siesta standing atop the elevator while Alexander let out a short laugh. Siesta gave the men a small wave. "'Sup?"

"Yeah, so how did you plan on getting back up?" Alexander asked.

Siesta's face fell as she waved her flashlight around in an attempt to find any way to climb up. A sheepish smile then grew across her face. "Didn't think about that."

Grouse groaned while Alexander pinched the bridge of his nose. They watched as Siesta pried the emergency hatch on the elevator's roof open and dropped inside. They saw her face appear in the black square moments later.

"Come on!"

Grouse and Alexander shared a look before they both looked to Louise, who only looked horribly confused. Grouse shrugged.

"Fuck it."

Grouse sat on the grimy floor and let his legs dangle into the shaft. Alexander provided the necessary light as Grouse eased himself off and into open air. He kept his shotgun an iron grip as he hit the elevator hard. He shook off the impact and moved to drop through the hatch, but before that he peered over the side of the elevator out of curiosity, pointing his shotgun down to illuminate.

He inhaled sharply. The shaft went down much farther than his light could show. Grouse wasted no more time, and dropped into the elevator.

Alexander turned to Louise and motioned for her to go next. She was hesitant, seeing that the drop was certainly quite farther than she'd ever like to fall, and the impacts had been horrendously loud. Nevertheless, she slung her carbine onto her back next to her double-barrel, and got on her bottom in the same way Grouse had. Her legs hung in the shaft for a few tense moments before she began inching herself forward.

Louise decided that this was just incredibly stupid

She caught sight of a hand that Alexander had extended for her to take. Louise was confused for a moment, until she realized he must mean to lower her into the shaft so she wouldn't have as far of a drop. She twisted and grasped onto his hand with both of hers and tenderly slid her bottom off the edge. She kept her eyes down and allowed herself to drop when she felt the distance had been decreased sufficiently. Although she had fallen a far shorter distance than the others, the impact was much harsher than she had been expecting.

She stumbled forward, her hand quickly reaching out and grasping the elevator cable to steady herself. She wasted little time. Guided by Alexander's light, she dropped through the hatch into the elevator.

Louise left the elevator through the barely opened doors, and found Siesta standing nearby while Grouse was looking around. The area the elevator had led to was a long concrete passageway with pipes and conduits lining the walls, and by Louise's estimation, it was a thousand times darker than the levels above. She was already dreading this.

"Hey," Siesta greeted with a smirk. "Your footsies still intact?"

"My feet are fine," Louise huffed back. "No thanks to you. How are we going to get out of here now?"

Siesta waved her off. "It'll be fine, don't worry. It's like an adventure."

Louise scoffed. It'll be fine? It's like an adventure? How could it be fine? She was sure they were going to be swarmed by these bloodsucking creatures and all die slow and agonizing deaths.

Another resonating thud signaled that Alexander had dropped onto the elevator. After a smaller thud, Alexander emerged from the elevator. Seeing that everyone had assembled, Grouse motioned for the group to follow.

"Alright then, let's see what's down here."

Louise noted that his attitude seemed to match hers as they started off down the passage. He was completely void of any enthusiasm.

The group didn't get far, and halted when Grouse's light highlighted something troubling.

"I was actually really hoping something like this would happen," Alexander remarked sarcastically. The passage was completely blocked. Steel bars extended from the floor to the ceiling and from wall to wall. A small man-sized gate was situated on the far right side, which on further inspection Grouse found not only to be locked, but also completely welded closed.

"Why would somebody weld this?" Grouse asked to nobody in particular, heaving a ragged sigh.

"Because they knew we were coming and wanted to ruin our day," Alexander suggested. "Or perhaps, it's somebody else's way of saying that we really don't want to go down there."

"Or maybe we don't want to be in here," Siesta added, flashing a wry grin when the two men turned to glare at her.

"Fuck off, Siesta. Don't say shit like that," Grouse groaned. He turned and started back the way they had come. Siesta only laughed at his response. "Let's find a way up the damn elevator shaft then."

The group made their way towards the elevator, flashlights darting about. It was when Alexander's flashlight passed over a previously unnoticed door that caused him to stop the group.

"Grouse." Alexander pointed. "Door."

Grouse turned to point his shotgun towards the door and shone his light through the opening. He immediately noticed something unsettling.

"Shit, I think I see a body," Grouse observed tensely. He moved towards the door with his weapon raised. The others followed behind him, and were quickly hit with the smell of decay.

"Founder above," Louise breathed, letting her Kalashnikov hang in one hand while she covered her nose with a sleeve. Upon entering the room, flashlights revealed four bodies in total. "God, the smell. I'm going to vomit."

"Just don't get it on me," Siesta warned teasingly. She moved to look over Grouse's shoulder as he examined a body.

"Look at these markings," Grouse glanced towards Alexander, who had begun to scavenge another body for equipment. "The markings on the head and neck, they're different from the other bodies we examined with Tremor."

Siesta observed the gaunt and pale face of the long dead stalker in silence, while Louise released a squeak of horror when she wandered over.

"That's what happens when the bloodsuckers get you," Siesta said, nudging Louise with her elbow. "They suck out all your blood and you end up looking like that guy."

Louise shuddered at the thought, and especially the slack-jawed expression of eternal horror forever written on the corpse's face. A rather out of place thought suddenly sprung to her mind. "Funny, you kind of already look like that."

Siesta stood shocked for a few moments, before she smacked Louise on the arm and laughed. "Ouch, my feelings. Where did that come from?"

"It sort of just sprung to mind, actually," Louise replied distantly, her eyes still latched onto the corpse. "You always make rude-but-not-serious remarks about me, so I thought I'd return the favor."

"Talk about weird timing though. I figured you'd be all worried about being set upon by bloodsuckers and blind dogs and zombies and have all the flesh torn from your bones and your insides become outsides and –"

Louise glared and cut the stalker off. "I had been thinking about that quite a lot. Thank you for that beautiful imagery as well. Have you considered becoming a writer? Can you even write?"

Siesta clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Of course I can write. I told you I liked horror novels, didn't I?"

"Just because you can read doesn't mean you can write."

"Of course it does," Siesta said, eyeing Louise in disbelief. "Do you know anybody who can read but not write?"

"No."

"Well? They go hand in hand."

"N-not necessarily!"

"They totally do!"

"If you two are done having a lover's quarrel," Grouse began, having moved to different corpse without Siesta or Louise even noticing.

"Not cool," Siesta interjected.

"Then I believe we can move on," Grouse finished, ignoring Siesta. He obviously couldn't understand the context of what the two girls had been saying, but it easy to deduce that it was over something stupid. "Danila isn't here. Who knows where he could have ended up."

Louise felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to find Alexander holding two AK-74 pattern magazines for her to take. She accepted them, nodding her thanks. She looked the magazines over, finding that they were indeed the kind that would fit in her weapon, although she was sure Alexander already knew that. Nevertheless, she stripped a round off one just to be sure. She eyed the back of the cartridge, squinting at the little numbers in the darkness.

 _5.45 x 39mm_

It would work. She pocketed the magazines.

Grouse moved to the only other door in the room, and upon trying he found it locked. He crouched down in front of the knob, and fished through his pockets. "I'll see if I can pick this," he said. "Shouldn't take too long."

Alexander leaned over his shoulder, while Louise turned to Siesta for an explanation. "What's he doing to the door?" She asked.

"Picking the lock," Siesta told her.

Louise thought for a moment. "I think in this situation it would be better just to be a little crude and just break the door."

"It would be faster, yeah. But it would make a lot of noise."

Grouse groaned, cursing at the lock. It was giving him more trouble than it should have.

"We were just shooting guns upstairs," Louise pointed out, eyeing Siesta flatly. "I think that if anything was going to be annoyed at us because of noise it would have done so already."

"Probably," Siesta agreed. "But it doesn't hurt to be careful sometimes."

Louise was about to retort when Grouse pulled the door open. She decided to leave what Siesta said alone. It was sound advice that she knew she should take into consideration, even if it was a rather vague and well-known piece of advice.

It had also come out of a woman who had jumped into an elevator shaft.

While Louise wasn't sure about many of the contraptions and customs in this world, she could easily assume that jumping into an elevator shaft was not a normal thing to do.

Louise followed behind Grouse and Alexander through the door, entering into a narrow hallway lined with pipes behind steel gratings. Siesta wordlessly took up the rear. It wasn't long before the group ground to a halt, and Louise nearly buried her face in Alexander's back from the sudden stop. Louise gave him a quizzical glance as he slowly turned around to look directly over her head to address Siesta. He spoke quickly, in a low voice. Louise turned to Siesta, and was quite surprised to find a look of fear crossing the former maid's face.

"S-Siesta," Louise whispered nervously. "What is it? What did he say to you?"

Siesta swallowed. "The room ahead of us is full of sleeping bloodsuckers."

* * *

 _A/N: This turned out to be another chapter that I decided to cut in half._

 _Oh well. Stay tuned for the next chapter, when Louise and Siesta really get into trouble._


	8. Humble Beginnings VIII

_Humble Beginnings VIII_

 _Zaton_

 _10:13_

Cold terror filled Louise's body. She knew this was it, that this was going to be the end of her short life. She would be drained of her blood in a dark basement by a squid-faced nightmare, or more accurately, an entire room full of them.

An entire room full of bloodsuckers.

An entire room full of sleeping bloodsuckers.

Something clicked in Louise's head. She turned to Siesta, her voice tiny and weak. "How can they be asleep? We were just shooting our guns upstairs."

Siesta's thought process visibly consisted of her opening her mouth to respond, closing her mouth, opening it again, and then furrowing her brow. She looked to Alexander. "Yeah... Louise is onto something, actually."

"What?" Alexander replied, confused. Siesta mentally slapped herself. She had said that in Tristainian.

"How are the bloodsuckers sleeping if we were shooting upstairs?" Siesta asked, switching to Ukrainian.

Alexander paused in thought before glancing at Grouse for some sort of explanation, who shrugged. "Heavy sleepers... maybe?" He suggested.

Alexander heaved a sigh. "That's a theory I'd rather not test."

"Right, well," Grouse said, swallowing. "I suppose we should make our way through them then."

Siesta raised an eyebrow. Frankly, that was the most bat-shit insane idea she'd heard in a while. She could think of only one that was comparable in insaneness.

 _How about we just try talking to the controller? Who knows? Maybe it's just scared and misunderstood._

The stalker shuddered at the memory. That particular situation hadn't gone well at all. Siesta would readily admit that she developed ideas and plans in her head that most would consider insane and stupid, and she usually carried them out with a fair percentage of success – much to the ire and sometimes amusement of others. However, she would be proud to admit that attempting conversation with a controller was not one of her crazy ideas and she had been firmly against it.

Although it had been a disaster, she did take one lesson away from the encounter.

Controllers were most certainly not scared of humans. In fact, it could be said they have a rather vehement hatred of the species.

All of this was water under the bridge, focusing on the present was her current priority.

"How?" Siesta asked quietly. "You're crazy."

Grouse gave her a sidelong glance. "I'm crazy? You're the one who jumped into the freaking elevator shaft."

Siesta bit her lip, deciding against arguing the fact that they had all followed her. It was not the time or place. The group started off slowly in single file.

"W-wait," Louise whispered in fright as Siesta pushed her forward. "We're going in there? W-w-why are we going in there?"

"Just follow behind Alexander," Siesta instructed. "And stay quiet."

Louise bit her lip almost hard enough to draw blood. She felt like her stomach and heart were simply going to rip out of her body from the amount of fear coursing through her. It was difficult to pick out anything as they slowly descended the short set of stairs into the room. Grouse headed up the group, the flashlight attached to his shotgun pointed more at the floor than anything else. He didn't seem inclined to begin waving it about any time soon.

When she saw the first bloodsucker, barely illuminated by Grouse's light, Louise's heart came grinding to a halt.

It seemed that these creatures preferred to sleep while standing up. She bit down on her lip harder.

 _Bloody ridiculous!_

Louise was sure she would remember this as one of the scariest things anybody could do. At least the creatures weren't invisible while they slept, then they'd be running straight into then, and thusly, straight into their deaths.

As they tip-toed through the daunting maze of slumbering bloodsuckers, one to Louise's right released a heavy breath that slammed right into her face. She stiffened as the hot air pricked at her skin and the horrid stench of the creature's breath reached her nose. She could barely see the creatures under the meager illumination Grouse's light provided while pointed at the floor, but she could hear them breathing all around her. There were dozens of them.

And now, she could feel one.

A bloodsucker twitched violently in its slumber. Its hand shot upward, and came back down to rest right on top of Louise's head. Somebody may as well punched rivets through her feet and into the floor, because there was no way she was moving now.

To her rear, Louise could hear Siesta inhale sharply at the sight of the tawny hand resting on her head. The petrified pink-haired girl quickly stuck an arm out and grabbed a fistful of Alexander's coat, bringing him to a halt as well. When he glanced back at her he mouthed something at the sight, which of course Louise couldn't make sense out of, but she was sure it was a statement of disbelief and horror. Grouse stopped as well when Alexander signaled him, and he joined in on observing the situation with fearful curiosity.

Louise knew that if she did the wrong thing it wouldn't just mean her death. Everybody would be going down with her, and they knew it too.

The hand moved again and slid down across Louise's face before it dropped limply to the bloodsucker's side. Louise wiped her mouth on her sleeve in disgust. The creature's hand had brushed against her lips. She spared the particular bloodsucker a glance and found that its sleep hadn't been disturbed in the least.

The group began to move again, eager to put that little situation behind them. As they painstakingly made their way through the maze of sleeping death, Louise began to wonder why all of the bad things that could possibly happen in a situation seemed to gravitate towards her.

Obviously bad things happened to other people as well, just not as much when she was around.

They turned a corner around a set of electrical cabinets and found a lengthy staircase set before them. Interestingly, the room at the top seemed to be quite well lit. Even better, it seemed to be the end of the bloodsucker's musty nest. They quietly climbed the stairs and found that the room at the top to be well lit only because of a dead stalker. He had been carrying a handheld industrial lamp that had fallen from his hands upon his death, which must have been recent judging from the fact that the lamp was still functioning.

"Well," Grouse remarked quietly, strolling into the room with relief. "We didn't even disturb naptime."

Siesta lightly chuckled at the comment before looking to Louise. She had expected the pink-haired girl to get angry, blame her for what had happened, and then stomp away with steam flowing out of her ears. However, Louise was being oddly quiet, her eyes fixed to the floor almost as if she were in a daze. "Hey, Louise?" Siesta queried.

"Yes?" Louise replied distantly, breaking her gaze from the floor. She pawed at the top of her head. She could still feel the ghost of the hand.

"You okay?"

Louise shuddered as some of her usual demeanor returned. "I-I suppose. I am never doing that again, though."

Siesta fully agreed. "Maybe jumping into the elevator shaft was not the best course of action."

"The thought hadn't crossed my mind," Louise huffed with a sarcastic edge.

"Guys," Alexander spoke up, drawing the group's attention. "I think I smell fresh air over here."

Grouse turned away from the dead stalker to see that Alexander was now heading for the only other way out of the room.

He followed, and motioned for the girls to do so as well. They entered the passageway and saw a door at the end illuminated under the glare of Alexander's flashlight. There was only one thing in their way.

An enormous hole in the floor.

The hole, which was likely caused by an anomaly, spanned from one side of the hallway to the other and was far too large to jump across. The concrete and strengthening rebar had been eaten away, along with earth and a layer of thin steel. It seemed the hole allowed access to a large metal culvert.

Alexander wordlessly dropped into the hole and his boots sank into the mud on contact. Thankful that the drop hadn't been as far as in the elevator shaft, Alexander glanced around and smiled at what he saw. He was sure he had smelled fresh air coming up from the hole in the floor, and the literal light at the end of the tunnel proved him right. He looked up to the awaiting faces of the group.

"There's a way out, come down."

Grouse was the first to drop, followed by Siesta, and then Louise, who was far less than happy to find her boots muddy once again. They traversed the tunnel mostly in silence; only the sounds of the muck squelching underneath boots broke the silence between them. The mouth of the tunnel was soon upon them.

Louise exited the tunnel last, and did so mouth agape. They had emerged in an area Louise was sure it had been a small pond at some point, and even before that it had likely been a part of a larger network of waterways when the water level was much higher, but now it was something completely different.

Gravitational anomalies had perverted the area into making absolutely no sense, which shouldn't have been a surprise given the nature of the Zone, but Louise couldn't help but be amazed. The surface of the pond was not flat as it should have been. Instead, it was dotted with peaks and mounds of pure water. The water flowed randomly, up, down, sideways, and diagonally in a cacophony of madness.

This, however, was only the first thing wrong with the scene. The second was the air around the pond. A haze seemed to hang about the area, coming into existence at one end of the pond, and fading out at the other as the wind blew. It largely reminded her of the haze seen underneath the oakpine anomaly, so thinking logically – Zone logically, that is – Louise quickly deduced that the haze was probably not good for anybody's health. The final thing wrong with the scene was the thing sitting near the middle of the pond. On one of the small patches of exposed earth that dotted the pond, a mechanical monstrosity sat derelict and damaged. The pink-haired girl had no idea what to make of it.

Louise was broken out of her thoughts as the group began to converse amongst each other. She turned to Siesta with a longing expression, wanting to be clued in.

Siesta kindly obliged her. "We're just kind of wondering why there's a helicopter sitting in the middle of that anomaly field."

 _Helicopter?_

What in the name of God was a helicopter? Was it self-explanatory like an elevator? If an elevator's function was to elevate, was a helicopter's function to helicopt? Louise scoffed at her own thoughts. That couldn't possibly be it. She'd ask later.

"Danila wasn't in there, so that's just a dead end," Grouse grunted.

Alexander gave him a sideways glance. "Do you mean other than the fact that it's a giant lair of bloodsuckers?"

"Yes, well," Grouse sighed and scratched his head. That unsettling fact may have slipped his mind for a moment. "We should head back to the Skadovsk. I need to speak to Tremor regarding the markings that were on the bodies, and we also have to talk to Beard about the bloodsuckers."

The others were quick to agree. Louise was as well, once she was informed of what was happening. Despite feeling relieved as they trudged away from the anomaly field and in the general direction of the Skadovsk, Louise couldn't help but feel that this was only the beginning of a long day.

* * *

"Alright," Alexander began, pulling up a seat adjacent to Louise and Siesta. They had arrived in the Skadovsk about twenty minutes ago and Grouse had immediately left to speak to Tremor, leaving the others to speak to Beard about the bloodsucker problem. Since Alexander had the best grasp of Ukrainian out of the remaining members of the group, being that it was his native language, he had volunteered to speak to Beard on their behalf.

"Beard said something has to be done about the lair, obviously," Alexander continued, noticing that Siesta had chosen to translate his Ukrainian to Louise in real-time. He was aware that she couldn't speak the language well, but now he knew that she at least understood what was being said. "But he doesn't want to just send in a bunch of stalkers to shoot up the place, it would be a suicide mission. He'd rather explore other options first, which I kind of agree with."

Siesta nodded in agreement, along with Louise.

"His best idea was to gas the place, since he's heard of a stash of poison gas or something here in Zaton."

Siesta's eyebrows found their way upward in surprise. "Poison gas?"

"Yup," Alexander nodded, crossing his arms. "That's all he knew, though. Apparently Owl is the one who knows more about it."

Siesta rolled her eyes with an unenthusiastic grunt. She was not fond of the trader known as Owl, but he provided a necessary service. If anything, Owl was to Zaton like Sidorovich was to The Cordon. The stalkers here needed him, and Owl took full advantage of the fact. Besides, it wouldn't do to go wandering around Zaton looking for some poison gas. They didn't even know exactly what they were looking for, and Zaton was far too large a region to do such a thing.

"But I've got some things I need to take care of in the meantime," Alexander stated, standing up from his chair. Siesta eyed the man with a little surprise. "But talk to Owl anyway, if you don't mind. I shouldn't be long, and Grouse should be around soon too."

Bidding the man farewell, Siesta watched as he made for the door and left the confines of the Skadovsk. The moment the door had latched shut, she promptly rose from her seat.

"Are we going to see Owl?" Louise asked reluctantly, standing along with the stalker.

Siesta sighed. "Yup," she drawled.

"Great," Louise returned sarcastically. She didn't know much about Owl personally, and she felt no longing to get to know him. He seemed as greasy and slimy as they came.

They swiftly made their way upstairs and ducked into the room that Owl called home. It was right across from Tremor's office, and Louise could hear Grouse's voice along with Tremor's distinct nasally one. The room was a similar affair to Sidorovich's arrangements; a small area of the room was allotted for customers, while the rest had been barred off. Rifles, shotguns, pistols, sub-machine guns and many other types of weapons hung on the walls. Boxes of ammunition were stacked neatly onto shelves, and even larger tins of ammunition were also present if one preferred to buy in bulk.

Owl eyed the pair with a bored expression, while Siesta and Louise kept their faces blank. Louise stared at the rat-faced man, imagining him with long whiskers and enlarged front teeth as Siesta began talking. She suppressed a smirk. If she could illustrate it, she certainly would. Cattleya would have gotten a laugh out of that.

Louise's thoughts were suddenly interrupted when Siesta began profusely swearing in Tristainian.

"Are you fucking kidding me? You fucking God damn asshole I swear to fuck I'll..."

"Siesta!" Louise cried in horror as her ears were assaulted with foul language. "What is the matter with you?"

Siesta shut herself up and took a deep breath. She held up a hand to keep the pink-haired girl silent. "I'll explain in a minute, just hold on."

The former maid turned back to Owl, who simply continued to eye her flatly despite her outburst.

"Really? Three-thousand?" Siesta asked in disbelief.

Owl nodded. "Yes. Then I'll tell you what you want to know."

"One-thousand," Siesta countered.

"Three-thousand."

"Twelve-fifty."

"Three-thousand."

"Fifteen-hundred."

"Three-thousand."

Siesta was completely ready to pull her hair out by this point, and she was certainly ready to pull out Owl's but he didn't even have any. She'd reach over the countertop and throttle the man as an alternative, but then the better half of the boat would be on her back about it. "Two-thousand," she spat in a final offer.

"Deal," Owl agreed, rather unexpectedly. He held out his hand, awaiting payment.

Reluctantly drawing an appropriate amount of bills from her rear pocket, Siesta handed Owl the money.

"Alright," Owl began, speaking as he counted over the money. "The gas you're looking for is on Preobrazhensky Bridge, just past the ranger station. A military convoy was passing over the bridge when it was hit with multiple anomalies. From what I've heard, the gas should still be there, probably in a truck or something. The gas itself is Perin B3, a nerve agent. It's dangerous stuff, if you're using it on that lair of bloodsuckers it should work nicely."

Siesta nodded and promptly turned to leave. She felt more than a little cheated having paid two-thousand Rubles just to hear that. She also wondered how Owl knew what he knew, and how he knew what they were up to. It was likely that it was mentioned by Alexander or Grouse, but who could know for sure? The man sold information regularly, but how he gained most of his information was a mystery.

A mystery Siesta didn't really care to solve. She had bigger fish to fry, so to speak.

* * *

Having had no patience left after her encounter with Owl, Siesta elected to leave for the bridge with Louise before either Grouse or Alexander could return. Siesta was confident that they could both handle this simple task.

They were both now traveling uphill along a strip of road that Siesta knew would eventually bring them right to the bridge. The road gracefully curved upward around a small grove of trees, straightening out to shoot straight past a cluster of walled-in buildings known as the ranger station. Siesta had explained to Louise that the ranger station had apparently been some sort of military depot at some point, but now it was just abandoned. Siesta did note in an aside that it would provide good cover in the event of an unexpected emission.

As they approached an old van on the road, Siesta's anomaly detector sprung to life with a ticking noise that Louise immediately felt was rather annoying. Siesta stopped in her tracks and barred Louise from going any further with an outstretched arm. She brandished her detector, flipping up the cover that protected the display.

Siesta frowned. One of the many reasons why Zaton was more populated than other areas was the lack of radioactive hotspots, but it seemed that nothing was ever guaranteed. "Come on, around the van. Don't go to close."

"Right," Louise drew out. She didn't know what a 'van' was, but she could easily assume that it was the ugly dilapidated vehicle sitting on the road. "Any particular reason why?"

Siesta made her way around the van with Louise in tow. She hadn't gotten around to explaining the ins and outs of radiation and its dangers to Louise yet, and now wasn't a particularly opportune moment to do so.

"It's radiation. I'll explain it later, okay? Now isn't the best time. I don't explain these things to you because I don't care, it's just..."

"You forget," Louise finished for her, drawing a glance from the stalker. "Because you've become used to these things, you forget that you have to explain them."

Siesta chose not to respond, fearing she may accidentally say something stupid to change Louise's mind on the subject. Instead, she focused her attention on something else. As they followed the graceful curve of the road upward, they neared a small group of stalkers sitting at the side of the road. They crowded around a small fire, eating their lunches or simply sitting idle. It was a depressing scene, everybody seemed downcast. It was a typical scene in the Zone.

Siesta scanned the group as they passed, searching for familiar faces. She quickly spied a stalker she was a little familiar with, Spartacus. He offered her a small wave, to which she smiled and returned. Louise only spared the group a curious glance.

They continued in silence as the ranger station loomed closer. At this distance, Louise could see that the compound was surrounded by thick concrete walls that were broken in many places, exposing bent rebar. A rather tall multi-story building sat at the back of the compound, and next to it a slightly shorter building stood with large, dirtied windows gracing its walls. Two long buildings stood next to each other in front of the multi-story building, running parallel to the road. Various smaller buildings and storage sheds dotted the inside of the walls, and Louise wondered why this area wasn't more populated.

Perhaps there simply weren't enough people to make most areas populated around here. Louise frowned at the thought as they began passing in front of the compound. "So..." Louise dragged out. "Is this place really abandoned now? Nobody uses it for anything? Seems a waste to me." She noticed Siesta spare her a glance. "I mean, it still looks horrible, but there's a lot of shelter."

"Mercenaries used to hang around here, but they moved out before you showed up. They're set up on the other side of the bridge now at the waste treatment plant," Siesta answered. "Maybe one day the stalkers might move camp up here, but right now it's too much trouble."

Louise bit her lip. Mercenaries? She knew she shouldn't be surprised. This kind of place was likely to attract those kinds of folks. "Why did the mercenaries leave? If I was interested in having a base for myself I think this would do nicely."

"A lot of the guys were wondering the same thing, actually. Who knows? If an entire merc squad was driven out of here overnight then it probably only means bad news."

Louise's thoughts remained on the ranger station only for a few moments longer. She noticed that she was walking alongside the Zaton pipeline once again. Strange, considering it hadn't been there just a second ago. She whipped her head around, finding that the pipe had emerged from the grove of trees to turn sharply and run parallel to the road.

Ahead, she could see the bridge they were looking for, and that the pipeline continued to run over the top of said bridge. The bridge was visible from many locations in Zaton, and she had noted it as being one of the largest bridges she had ever seen. It was made of steel, mostly. It had a large concrete underbelly that was shaped like a wide upside down 'U'. It was a strange construction, Louise had decided. From the distances she had seen it from it also appeared to be mostly intact, so she wasn't worried about its structural integrity.

However, she also noticed that a fog was rolling in, which did elicit a few flakes of worry within her.

"Siesta, it's getting foggy," Louise announced as the bridge closed in.

Siesta ground to a halt, and Louise could easily hear the fear in her voice as she spoke. "You're right. Shit... I hadn't noticed."

Louise froze, her eyes widening. "W-what? What do you mean? W-what happens when there's fog?"

"It means..." Siesta slowly turned around, swallowing. Louise desperately awaited her to finish, but only found herself being flicked on the nose. "That it's just getting foggy. Geez, who cares?"

"You!" Louise growled, swiping at the stalker's hand as she retracted it. "You know I don't know much about the Zone! For all I know the fog here could be filled with... d-deadly creatures with lobster claws and t-tentacles that attack people and feed on their insides!"

"No, it's just fog. It's pretty normal around here, I assure you," Siesta scoffed at the workings of Louise's strange imagination. One minute she was calling a flashlight a directional torch and the next she was making up new horrifying creatures, as if the Zone didn't have enough of them to begin with. Louise had mentioned earlier that she was lacking in creativity, but Siesta found herself partly disagreeing. It seemed that Louise's imagination ran wild when she began thinking about the disturbing creatures that could possibly exist in the Zone, and the many ways that they could painfully end her life.

Siesta felt a little sympathy for her. It was obvious that the poor Noble girl simply didn't want to die a horrible death at the hands – or claws – of some mutant. Siesta completely understood. During her first months in the Zone, her fear of death would cause her mind to constantly create disturbing scenarios such as mutants feasting on her while she was still alive, or being torn to shreds, torched, electrocuted, or crushed by anomalies.

In those days, panic attacks were plentiful, and quite troublesome.

Siesta's eyes found themselves settling on the bandaged portion of Louise's face. "I meant to ask you earlier, but how's your face doing?"

Slightly surprised at the swift change in subject, Louise tenderly grazed her fingertips over the bandages with a wince. "It hurts. Especially when I yawn or stretch my face in any way, which I try to limit myself from doing since I'd rather not re- open any of the cuts. And I'm worried about the scars they're going to leave behind..."

"If it's any consolation," Siesta turned on her heel and made in the direction of the bridge once again. "I think you're going to look like a badass."

Louise scoffed. "I'd rather not look like that, thank you."

"Why not?" Siesta asked teasingly. "What if you got back to Tristain someday, and everyone you knew saw your scars and were like," Siesta changed her voice to a higher and a slightly more mocking pitch. "'Oh Louise! How did you get those scars?' And then you tell them the story of how you kicked a bloodsucker's ass, and they'll think you're super cool."

Louise rolled her eyes. "Yes I'm sure that's exactly how it would happen. Then Kirche would also become ugly and flat- chested, Montmorency's hair would turn grey and fall out, and Guiche would go blind and never be able to stare at girl's chests from across the room again."

Siesta raised an eyebrow. Was Louise self-conscious about her chest? She put that thought aside. "Friends of yours?"

"No," Louise simply replied, to which Siesta shrugged.

"Anyway," Siesta said, her boots finally hitting the surface of the bridge. "This is... the bridge."

"The bridge?" Louise asked, eyeing the former maid flatly. "Does 'the bridge' have an actual name, or is it just called 'the bridge'?"

"Well it does have an actual name, but I can't be bothered to remember it," Siesta admitted, waving dismissively. "Well, I mean I know what it is, but I can't pronounce it. Seriously –" Siesta spread her arms out to her sides in an exaggerated manner. "-The word is like this long."

Louise smirked. "Sure, if it's in the most ridiculously large lettering possible."

"Yeah, but I'd love to see you try and say it."

Ignoring the stalker's remark, Louise pointed to a collection of vehicles sitting about halfway across the bridge. "I think it's safe to assume that what we're looking for is over there?"

"Good chance," Siesta nodded, starting off with Louise right behind her. Just as quickly, she stopped. "Wait a second."

Instead of groaning in impatience, Louise narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on the Kalashnikov "What is it?"

Siesta pointed, while at the same time drawing a bolt out of her pouch. "Do you see it?"

Louise eyed the path ahead for a few moments before she was able to notice the haziness in the air ahead. She heaved a sigh of relief, knowing that if she hadn't been with Siesta she would have walked straight into an anomaly. "A burner? I don't feel any warmth."

"I don't think so," Siesta said, swiftly letting a bolt fly.

Upon making contact with the anomaly the bolt exploded with a pop similar to a firecracker. The bolt shot off in a random direction red hot with a trail of curling smoke behind it.

"I see," Siesta remarked calmly, a hand scratching at her chin.

"Y-you see?" Louise gaped, watching as the anomaly returned to its idle state. "It just blew up!"

"Whirligigs," Siesta explained, tossing another bolt. She planned to probe the anomalies to see if there were any gaps. "Sneaky little bastards. If you wander into one you're pretty much screwed. Not a good way to go. I saw a boar run into one of these once and it made some pretty unpleasant sounds before it was blown apart."

Louise watched as Siesta continued to throw bolts to their inevitable doom, an act which the former maid seemed to find thoroughly entertaining. Soon enough, it became apparent that they weren't getting across the bridge this way.

Siesta groaned in frustration, peeled back her hood, and ran a hand through her mop of hair. She had a feeling that this relatively simple task was going to become far more complicated than it should have been. She observed the bridge closely, and aside from some fallen sections of pipe, accompanying supports, the convoy, and anomalies, there was nothing else of interest immediately visible.

Except for a ladder.

A ways up the bridge, Siesta was sure she could see the top of a ladder poking up over the side of the bridge. She moved to the side of the bridge, leaning out over the railing. Sure enough, a ladder extended down from the bridge's surface to the concrete underbelly below.

Siesta smiled. Hopefully the ladder would be an easy way to bypass some anomalies. There was only one way to find out for sure. It would be a good alternative, rather than schlepping through the marshes all the way to the other side. That idea came with a few complications, such as the mercenaries being on that side of the bridge, the threat of bandits that far south, and the fact that the bridge might be just as anomaly ridden on the other side.

"Come on," Siesta urged, retreating from the bridge. "Idea time."

Louise followed after the stalker. "For some reason I don't like the sound of that."

They both shuffled down the steep incline that led underneath the bridge, Louise grumbling all the while. Siesta only smirked, and decided against commenting on the pink-haired girl's mumbling distaste for steep hills and thickening fog.

When they reached the underbelly of the bridge they found that ascending the curved concrete surface was quite easy. Siesta had expected things more along the lines of balancing precariously on steel beams, but she wasn't about to complain. They passed by support pillar after support pillar, finding that the ladder they were searching for very close to where the concrete and the top of the bridge met.

Siesta stepped out onto the catwalk, wary of the groans of protest the metal was releasing. She cast a couple of glances around, finding that the catwalk would have probably snaked the entire way across the bridge if most of it hadn't broken off and fallen to the marshes below, marshes that she found herself unable to see as she looked down. The fog had advanced in force, further dampening their visibility. She couldn't see the other end of the bridge either.

Siesta shrugged, and the deftly mounted the ladder. It's not like the fog was going to hamper their progress in any way.

When it came for Louise's turn to walk out onto the catwalk, she did so hesitantly. She had always heard that in the event of heights, do not look down. Unfortunately, looking down was the first thing she ended up doing. She couldn't see the ground through the fog, but that seemed to make it so much worse. Who knew how high off of the ground they were right now.

"Hey."

Louise yelped in fright, nearly tossing her weapon over the edge of the railing. She quickly glared upward to find Siesta's face sticking out over the railing.

"Are you afraid of heights or something?" Siesta asked teasingly.

"Yes, actually," Louise admitted, finding it difficult to will her legs to move as she stared down through the steel catwalk. "I'm not very fond of heights at all."

"Don't be such a pussy Louise," Siesta chided. "If you can walk into a lair of bloodsuckers, you can stand to be a little high off the ground."

While Louise glared, she knew Siesta was right. She approached the ladder with her carbine slung over her shoulder. She felt unsure as she wrapped her hands around the rungs.

"Oh come on, haven't you climbed a ladder before?"

Louise felt herself growing more annoyed with Siesta. Her brain decided that getting angry at the former maid would most likely remedy the situation. "Would you stop chastising me? No I've never climbed a bloody ladder before! We had people like you for things like that!"

Louise heard Siesta huff in annoyance as she disappeared over the edge of the bridge. Content that she wasn't being studied like an ant, Louise fearfully ascended the ladder. When she reached the top, the solid surface of the bridge felt like pure heaven.

"Over this way!" Siesta called out, quickly grabbing the pink-haired girl's attention. Louise found that Siesta was directly across from her on the other side of the bridge, with a section of fallen pipe lying between them. It seemed that if Siesta was peeved by what Louise had just said, she had quickly shrugged it off. "Just come straight, okay?"

Louise looked to her sides, finding the wavy air thick with anomalies. She decided to do just as Siesta said, fearing that if she didn't she'd end up just like the boar Siesta had seen. Louise not-so-gracefully clambered over the pipe and quickly rejoined her companion.

Siesta pointed towards the lower half of Louise's body with a small smirk. "You've got some of the rust on you."

Louise glanced down at her pants and then back to the rusted pipe she had climbed over. Mildly annoyed, she brushed the flakes of rust from the crotch of her pants. They strode towards the collection of military vehicles, Siesta tossing bolts all the while. It soon became evident that the area surrounding the vehicles was thankfully clear of anomalies, allowing them to move freely.

While Siesta wasn't particularly interested by the vehicles, Louise found herself quite intrigued. The first vehicle they passed was a UAZ jeep similar to the one she had seen at the gas station, although this one seemed to lack a roof. The next vehicle was an enormous thing, a hulking mass of steel sitting on eight wheels; a BTR-80. After that was a large cargo truck that Siesta was currently climbing onto. Another BTR-80 sat in front of the truck, and Louise was fairly certain that there was another jeep in front of that.

If these things could actually move all on their own, Louise desperately wanted to see it.

Siesta extended a hand for Louise, who in turn accepted. Louise found herself having to provide minimal effort into climbing into the bed of the truck; Siesta practically lifted her all on her own. Instead of commenting on Siesta's upper body strength, Louise looked to the large metal box that Siesta was bumping with her foot.

"Pretty sure this is it."

Louise groaned in disbelief. "We can't take this! It's enormous!"

Siesta shook her head, laughing. "No, it's inside this box."

Sighing, Louise crouched down in front of the box. The first thing she noticed was an old and rusted lock keeping the container closed. Great. "So what exactly does nerve gas do?"

Siesta shrugged. "I'm not sure, to be honest, but it doesn't sound very nice. I'd rather not find out first hand."

"Yes, well," Louise began, nodding in agreement. "I suppose we shall be careful with it then."

"We will, so step away from it."

Louise quirked an eyebrow as she straightened up. "Why?"

"Because I'm going to open it."

"How? It's locked and we've got no key."

Siesta drew her sidearm. "I've got a key right here."

Louise's eyes nearly bugged out of her head when she saw the gun. She immediately began waving her arms about in protest. "W-wait! No! Don't do that!"

Siesta holstered the weapon, her lips pursed. "Yeah, that's probably a bad idea." Louise was about to respond, but Siesta beat her to the punch. "Poke around the cars, yeah? See if you can find any keys or something. I'll start looking here." Siesta gestured to the boxes and crates around them.

Louise nodded and tentatively leapt down from the truck. She approached the lead vehicle in the convoy, and found something rather troubling. A section of the bridge had collapsed, and the UAZ's front wheels were hanging off the edge. She had noticed that there had been some damage to the bridge from a distance, but up close it looked much worse. Putting that aside, she moved to rummage through the jeep.

Louise nearly jumped out of her boots when the sound of a gunshot came from frighteningly close by. It quickly tapered off, reduced to a distant echo. She at first feared for her companion's safety, but the fear quickly melted into anger as Louise stomped back over to the truck.

"You shot it! You definitely shot it!" Louise barked, seeing Siesta hunched over in front of the now open container. "You did shoot it! Oh my God, Siesta."

Siesta shot her a lopsided grin. "I got impatient, okay?"

"I was gone for no more than thirty seconds!"

"Well I got impatient really fast."

Louise glared as Siesta produced a white cylindrical tank from the container. Siesta held it up for a moment, observing the markings on the tank and the fittings on the top.

"Kind of looks like a propane tank," Siesta remarked, drawing a confused look from Louise.

"A what tank?"

"Never mind," Siesta held the tank out over the edge of the truck. "Here, take it."

Louise accepted the tank into her arms almost like she would an infant. The tank had a surprising weight to it, causing her to quickly opt to set it down on the road surface. Siesta jumped down from the truck, stretching her back when she was firmly on the road.

"So did you check out the cars?" Siesta asked expectantly.

Louise narrowed her eyes. "No? I wasn't gone for nearly long enough."

Siesta wordlessly approached the lead UAZ, taking a quick look in the back. Two flat wooden crates caught her eye, especially the faded numbers 5.45 stenciled on them. Siesta smiled at the sight of the ammunition, and there was even more in the truck. It was obviously too much to carry now, but she made a mental note of it.

Returning to Louise, Siesta swiped up the gas tank and announced that they were leaving. Louise followed in silence, at least until they had reached the ladder.

"How are we going to get the tank down the ladder?"

Siesta froze, looking from the tank in her hands, and back to the ladder. "Fuck."

"You hadn't thought of it?" Louise asked.

"I hadn't thought of it," Siesta confirmed, setting the tank down on the road. A look of realization suddenly crossed her face. "Oh wait, I have an idea."

Louise silently observed as Siesta slung her rifle off of her back and set it on the road. It was soon followed by her backpack, which she began rummaging through. With a cry of triumph, Siesta quickly produced a coil of rope.

"You have rope?" Louise asked, eyeing the construct with little interest.

"Yes, I have rope," Siesta busied herself with securing one end of the rope to the tank. "Climb down the ladder and I'll send the tank down on the rope, okay?"

Louise huffed, approaching the ladder. "Why is it I have to go down first?"

"Because it's my rope, and I said so. Besides, I'm pretty sure I can tie better knots than you."

Realizing that Siesta was most likely right in regards to her knot tying skills, Louise slowly descended the ladder. The rusted metal groaned dangerously, and it was now when she decided that she had a firm dislike of ladders. Moments after she had reached the bottom, Siesta let the tank dangle over Louise's head with one hand on the rope and one on the tank.

"Catch!" Siesta exclaimed jokingly, jolting slightly as if she were simply going to drop the tank, to which Louise rolled her eyes. Siesta let the rope slide through her gloved hands at a steady rate, being sure not to let it fall too quickly.

"If you just drop it I'm not even going to try and catch it," Louise pointed out, holding out her arms expectantly as the tank slowly came towards her. She accepted the tank into her hands, guiding it to her feet. Not willing to spend any more time on the catwalk, Louise quickly moved back onto the concrete underbelly of the bridge and began to look over the knot Siesta had made.

Louise quickly found that she was unable to make heads or tails of it. She cursed her lack of practical skills, something she never thought she would do. She resorted to pulling at parts of the knot and eventually managed to free it just as

Siesta reached the bottom of the ladder with the coil looped around her arm.

Approaching Louise, Siesta quickly coiled the rope into a tidy bundle and held it out for Louise to take.

"Can you put it in my pack for me? So I don't have to take it off again."

Louise nodded, quickly doing as requested. Siesta scooped up the tank of Perin B3, something Louise was thankful she wasn't stuck carrying, and they both made their way off the bridge and up the steep hill towards the road.

"How do you know how to tie knots?" Louise suddenly asked, eyeing Siesta curiously as they made their way along the road. "I always thought knots were for sailors."

Siesta smiled, thinking about how sheltered Louise's upbringing must have been. "My father was a fisherman, but he gave it up when he fell in love with my mother." Louise knew next to nothing about her life before she had become a stalker, so she decided to explain a little. Siesta hoped that this would open a door to getting to know each other. "We owned a little farm near the village of Tarbes. Father taught me some knots and stuff from his sailing days, but," Siesta's smile turned sheepish. "That one knot is the only one I can really remember."

Louise scoffed, although her lips still spread into a tiny smile. "Did you have any siblings?"

Siesta's attempt at door-opening seemed to have worked. "I have five brothers and three sisters. I'm the oldest. What about you?"

"I have two older sisters," Louise replied, a little distantly.

"It's hard, missing your family," Siesta remarked. She didn't even need to ask if Louise missed her family. She knew the feeling too well. "It doesn't get any easier either."

Louise sighed. "I was hoping you wouldn't say that."

"Oh I'm many things, Louise. But a liar isn't one of them."

Before Louise could respond, the strangest groan she had ever heard drifted through the air, causing both of them to come to a stop. It wasn't the groan of a forming emission, it was far more primal. It had also come from somewhere frighteningly nearby. Louise suspected it to be from within the ranger station, seeing as they were walking alongside it.

Louise narrowed her eyes in confusion. "What was that?" She turned to Siesta due to a lack of a response, finding her staring straight ahead with eyes slightly widened. "Siesta?"

Another groan soon followed, however this time it was more of a gurgling growl. Louise could only imagine what disgusting creature this sound was coming from. She was also surprised to find the ground beneath her feet shivering periodically. She brought her Kalashnikov up to her shoulder, pausing when she heard Siesta finally speak.

"Oh no, no, no. God, no. Please, no."

Louise watched as the tank of nerve gas shook in Siesta's grasp. She looked to the stalker's face, seeing only pure fear and horror. She couldn't recall ever seeing a face like that before in her life. "S-Siesta... what is happening?"

As if it were responding to Louise's question, barely visible through the dense fog, a creature sauntered out through a section of broken wall. She immediately noted that it was absolutely enormous, and from its silhouette it walked on two massive arm-like limbs with two smaller arms sitting above. With every step it made towards them, Louise felt the ground ever so slightly shake beneath her feet.

For the first time in recent months, Siesta found herself completely frozen with fear. She had wondered why the mercenaries had vanished from the ranger station, and the Zone had seen it fit to finally give her an answer. One of the Zone's most feared mutants was responsible.

The pseudogiant.

* * *

 _A/N: Maybe I should have mentioned this before, but these author notes may or may not contain spoilers. I'll be sure to mention it from here on out._

 _Some of you may have wondered how Louise and Siesta could have possibly found themselves in more trouble than being in a room filled with dozens of sleeping bloodsuckers._

 _I think this could be fairly worse, or on par, I'm not sure. At least the bloodsuckers were asleep._

 _For those of you who have played through any of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games on master difficulty, then you know how stupidly hard it can be to kill one of this damn pseudogiants. Obviously there isn't actually a pseudogiant in the ranger station in Call of Pripyat, but I decided it would be interesting to throw one into the mix. However, in the game there is actually one located in Zaton. I won't say where, but it certainly caught me by surprise._

 _Anyway, this first act/arc/whateveryouwannacallit will be wrapping up in the next few chapters after the introduction of a new Halkeginian to Siesta and Louise's group and the conclusion of the bloodsucker quest._

 _Well, until next time._


	9. Humble Beginnings IX

_Humble Beginnings IX_

 _Zaton_

 _13:54_

The pseudogiant was undoubtedly one of the most feared creatures to inhabit the Zone. During the early days, long before the path to the center had been opened, the pseudogiant had been nothing more than a myth. Pseudogiants, controllers, bloodsuckers and countless other horrible creatures had once only been things the veteran stalkers of the day used to scare rookies around a campfire.

In the Zone, myth had a bad habit of turning into reality.

Like most mutants in the Zone, nobody knew how the pseudogiant had come into existence, nor did they know how such a large creature sustained the enormous diet it must require. Almost two meters tall, very well-muscled, and incredibly stupid, the pseudogiant was truly a force to be reckoned with.

Siesta knew this all too well. She had only seen a pseudogiant once before, but the situation had been an absolute nightmare. Memories of long dead comrades easily came flooding back, but she had no time to reflect on them. She barely heard the clang of the tank of nerve gas hitting the ground over her own breathing. She hadn't even realized her grip had loosened on it as she was running.

She flew from the cover of the building, seeing the ranger station's large multi-story building looming in front of her. She made for the front door, which stood only slightly ajar.

Siesta's shoulder flared as she charged through the door. She skidded to a halt in the middle of the room, a central stairwell by the looks of it, and whirled around just in time to see her pink-haired companion come flying into the room. Her feet slid on the dirty floor as she attempted to come to a halt.

Louise fell onto her bottom.

While she desperately wanted to laugh at the sight of Louise sliding on her bottom, Siesta bit it back. It really wasn't the time. She returned the door to its slightly ajar state, and crouched down in front of a nearby window. Louise approached moments later, and Siesta warned her to stay quiet with a finger pressed to her lips.

Not a moment after they had settled into staring through the window, the wall of the building they had previously ran through exploded outward in a shower of brick and mortar. The pseudogiant made its grand re-entrance, stepping out into the open with a furious roar. It looked one way, and then the other, moving its entire body as its ridiculously muscled neck served to prevent most head movement. Huge, glossy eyes darted about, desperately trying to locate its prey. After a moment, it was evident that it had been eluded. It growled deeply, stomping off in a random direction and quickly disappearing into the fog.

"Oh... my God," Louise whimpered, sinking to her knees. "What is that? W-what in the holy name of the Founder is that?"

"Pseudogiant," Siesta mumbled in disbelief. "It's a God damn pseudogiant." She let out a shaky breath. "I guess this explains why the mercenaries left in a hurry."

"What do we do?"

Siesta bit her lip. "There's no way we can kill it with the equipment we have. It's impossible."

"What?" Louise gave Siesta a look of horror. "Not even with these guns?"

"Not a chance. Their skulls are like ten centimeters thick."

"Ten... what?"

Of course Louise would not be familiar with a modern system of measurement. Siesta spread her thumb and index finger far enough apart to her best guess at ten centimeters. "Uh... like this?"

Louise balked in exasperation. "Oh God. Is there even room for any brains in there?"

Siesta shrugged. "I doubt it. They're as dumb as a sack of hammers." She ran a gloved hand through her hair. "The best thing we can do is sneak past it."

Silently, Louise agreed wholeheartedly. Continuing to stare out the window, she realized the pseudogiant had become absent from view. It was relieving, but also quite worrying at the same time. Who knew where it was lurking about now?

Louise glanced as Siesta moved to put her back to the wall and slid down onto her bottom with an exasperated sigh. "Just... we'll go soon. Just give me a minute, okay?"

Louise only barely nodded, continuing to gaze through the dirtied glass. After a few moments of silence, and a couple of very deep and audible breaths from Siesta, Louise decided to address the fact that Siesta had dropped the tank of nerve gas. It wasn't as if she had only just noticed that it was gone. She had nearly tripped over the thing when Siesta had simply flung it away from her grasp. They had cut through two long buildings that ran parallel to the road, and Louise was sure the tank had been dropped in the nearest building – the one the pseudogiant had recently emerged from.

"You dropped the tank. I can't see it anywhere," Louise squinted. Aside from the gaping new entrance created by the massive creature, the building had quite a few windows and open doors, but since it was so dark inside it was next to impossible to pick out anything discernible. "Why did you drop the tank?"

"So I could run faster. We're going to have to go and get it."

Louise wanted to let out a loud cry of frustration, but she limited it to an annoyed sigh. "We wouldn't have to if you didn't drop it."

Out of the corner of her eye Louise saw Siesta's head slowly turn to face her. She turned to meet the stalker's look, which she quickly realized had been a mistake.

Siesta, quite plainly, was a pretty girl, especially in regards to her crystal blue eyes. If her hair was properly washed and brushed, and if she wore something nice, Louise was sure Siesta would do very well in her appearance. She was also sure that with the smile Siesta often wore, she'd come off as a polite and approachable person.

But Founder, she could give an intimidating glare.

"I was fucking scared, okay?"

Louise looked away, staying silent. Alright, so she shouldn't have said that. Besides, she knew in the back of her mind that she would have likely done the same thing if she had been carrying the tank. She probably would have dropped it even sooner. Louise started when she felt something brush against her shoulder. Siesta had closed in and was now gazing out the same window as Louise.

"It should be right inside that building, probably near the hole that gigantic asshole made," Siesta pointed. "Not like it'll be hard to spot anyway."

Louise stared for a moment. Any semblance of anger or discontent had disappeared from Siesta's face. She wondered how Siesta could brush things off so easily without holding any kind of grudge. She sometimes found herself glaring at the former maid randomly because she had called her 'Noble Girl' during the first few days they had known each other. Perhaps it would be better to just let stupid little things like that go.

"What if the giant squashed it?" Louise asked. If the pseudogiant had been able to shake the ground while walking, surely the tank would have easily been crushed underfoot.

Siesta bit her lip, wincing. "Well I hope not. I'm sure we'd know anyway. Tanks like that are usually under pressure, so it would have made a loud noise if it had been broken open."

Louise wasn't completely sure what Siesta meant, but she decided to trust her words. So the tank was likely still intact, that was good, wasn't it? If the tank had been broken open there would probably be nerve gas everywhere, and that would surely be quite bad.

"I can't see it anywhere," Siesta said, looking for the pseudogiant. "I can't hear it either, could be anywhere now."

Siesta wasn't being very reassuring, that was for sure.

"Well, let's go and get this over with," Siesta muttered, sounding just as reluctant as Louise felt.

Siesta made sure all of her gear was secure, and that her rifle was snugly slung on her back. Louise did the same, slinging her Kalashnikov onto her back cavalry style. If it was going to be useless against this creature like Siesta said,

then Louise wasn't going to trouble herself by carrying the weapon in her hands. Mobility would be advantageous in this situation, it seemed.

They crept outside, staying low. Louise's heart pounded furiously in her compact chest as they darted across open ground like a pair of mice and entered the cover of the next building through the hole in the wall. Louise hadn't taken much notice earlier, but now she chose to spare the interior of the building a glance. Huge metal furnaces lined the center of the building, four in total. They were massive things, no doubt having seen their fair share of use, and fair share of neglect from the amount of rust plating them.

The tank of Perin B3 was easy to spot, like Siesta had said. It simply lay on its side near the hole the pseudogiant had created. Louise steeled herself as she hefted the tank in her not-so-well-muscled arms. She was scared, of course, frightened to the edge of hysteria in fact, but she decided that no matter what, she was not going to drop this tank.

Siesta motioned for her to follow, but Louise had no time to comply with the silent order. Two shakes underneath their feet was all the warning they had before the wall at the end of the building exploded inward. The pseudogiant stumbled into the room, snarling and roaring in primal fury. In an instant, Louise wondered...

How could something so enormous and stupid sneak up on them that well? Perhaps it was a little smarter than they had thought. Then again, it was smashing walls with its own face. That seemed pretty stupid, even if it was working quite well.

Louise had no time left to wonder, or to be frozen in shock and fear, because the giant began to charge towards them at a ridiculous pace.

"Shit!" Siesta swore loudly, throwing any semblance of stealth to the wind. She grabbed Louise by her arm and forced her to move. They squeezed between a pair of furnaces, barely fitting with Siesta's backpack. Louise's grip on the tank began to loosen as they flew out through a side entrance.

 _I don't want to die._

They darted across open ground again, the howling of twisting metal quite audible as the pseudogiant simply plowed through the furnaces. The cover of the next long building neared as a hole was punched through the wall behind them. Siesta's hand tightened around Louise's arm like a vice, while at the same time Louise found her own grip on the tank slipping further.

 _I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I really..._

The cover of the building was barely welcoming. The pseudogiant knew exactly where they were. They weaved around an old pickup truck that was parked inside, just as the doorway they had entered through was made twice as large.

 _To hell with this damn tank!_

Louise dropped the tank completely, scrambling through an open window behind Siesta.

 _I don't want to bloody die!_

The ranger station's outer wall was a mere few meters away, and like a proverbial Holy Grail, there was a jagged crack that was definitely just wide enough for them to squeeze through. The horrendous sound of the truck being twisted beyond recognition reached their ears, followed by the destruction of more brick and mortar. The pair squeezed through the crack, uncaring of the exposed rebar tearing at their clothes and skin.

The road was easily found, and Louise and Siesta simply ran as fast as their legs could carry them. The pseudogiant crashed into the wall right where it was cracked, but was unable to break completely through. Being that the wall was well over a foot thick, and reinforced, it was quite a lot stronger than a simple brick wall.

Siesta glanced over her shoulder, seeing the creature's head barely poking through the crack. It thrashed against the wall, pushing with all of its might. It didn't even care about the pieces of rebar sinking into its flesh. Its glossy eyes were still trained on them as they ran. Siesta let out a loud guffaw at the sight, with one arm shooting into the air with a single finger raised in a defiant taunt.

They had escaped.

Despite this, they continued to run at full speed. Slowing down only when the small stalker camp along the side of the road neared. There was only one stalker sitting near the fire as Louise and Siesta stumbled in. The former nearly fell flat on her face as she sunk to her knees. They were both completely out of breath.

Siesta barely recognized Petruha as he eyed them curiously. "Siesta? What's up with you two?"

"Pseudo... giant," Siesta breathed, pointing up the hill as she fell backward onto her bottom. "In the... ranger station."

"What?" Petruha shot up to his feet. "Fuck! Are you serious?"

Still working on catching her breath, Siesta nodded.

Siesta was quite familiar with Petruha. He was one of the few stalkers from the outer regions that she knew in the area. He had been a common face around the rookie village, and had served as Wolf's right hand man for a long time. When Wolf had left the village after hearing the path to the center had been discovered, Petruha had followed soon after. Siesta had been quite surprised to find him hanging around the Skadovsk when she first wandered into Zaton. They had shared a drink together, and then went about their lives as stalkers. She had rarely spoken to him since.

"Spartacus and his guys just went up that way," Petruha said, distraught. "Shit! You didn't see them?"

Siesta shook her head. "I... I didn't."

Petruha let out a string of curses, grabbing up his own Kalashnikov. "I've got to go warn them. Damn!" He quickly left, sprinting up the road leaving only more obscenities in his wake.

"Siesta..." Louise breathed, staring down at the ground. "I dropped the tank."

"Just a minute," Siesta said, holding up a hand to silence the pink-haired girl. "I don't give a shit right now... just give me a minute."

After a few more moments of heavy breathing, Siesta groaned loudly into her hands. "You dropped the damn tank!"

"I was scared!"

"I can't believe it! Even after you criticized me for dropping it first, you go and drop it yourself!"

"Shut up! I. Was. Scared!"

"No, you shut up!" Siesta directed a harsh and berating glare Louise's way. "Now we're going to have to go back and get it!"

Louise was silent with the realization that what Siesta said was certainly the case. She pounded a fist on the dirt. It was her fault that they'd have to go back in there. After a few deep breaths, Louise sighed raggedly in defeat. It seemed, that even away from taunts and jeers from her classmates at the Academy, she still had bad habit of failing. "I'm sorry. I was just... I didn't... I – I didn't want to die."

Siesta visibly deflated. "No... don't be sorry. It's... I'm pretty sure I would have dropped it too. I nearly wet myself running away." She rose to her feet, eyes still on Louise. "Are you okay?"

Louise wondered, did Siesta mean physically or mentally? No matter. A quick once-over revealed that she had no notable injuries, perhaps a few scrapes from squeezing through the wall, but nothing worth mentioning at this point. Mentally, however, she was most definitely not fine. Louise was scared out of her wits, but she knew she would persevere.

She had to, because the penalty was death.

"I... I think so. Yes, I'm fine... yes."

* * *

It wasn't long before Louise found herself within the dreaded walls of the ranger station once again. Both she and Siesta lay flat on the corrugated metal roof of a low garage that hugged the outside wall. Instead of letting her hair hang in a ponytail like usual, Louise had opted to stuff it inside her hood, fearing that the bright color would make her much more visible to the pseudogiant's primitive brain. Their intent had been to observe the giant, and move when it was most opportune.

That was all well and good, but the situation seemed to have taken an unfortunate change.

A pair of binoculars pressed to her face, Siesta observed the inside of the building with the furnaces. There appeared to be a fair number of individuals gathered within the building itself. Even though the tall double door entrance to the furnace building allowed Siesta a good view of what was going on inside, there was no way to get an accurate count on the number of people. They moved about too much, and the interior was too dark.

There was no way to be completely sure of their affiliation, but Siesta was sure from their black trench coats and balaclavas that they were likely affiliated with one of the least well-regarded groups to populate the Zone. The bandits.

"Bandits," Siesta spat the word out with venom on her tongue. "What the hell are the bandits doing here?"

Louise sighed, and her eyes continued to scan over the compound. The fog had cleared for the most part, and the pseudogiant was worryingly absent from view. Spartacus and his group of stalkers were easily visible from their position, but were invisible to the bandits. Most of them crouched behind a low circular building that would have acted as a sort of gatehouse during another time, while others took cover behind stray vehicles and various other pieces of debris. The ranger station was full of objects suitable for cover, luckily for the stalkers.

They had spotted Petruha having a quiet yet heated discussion with Spartacus. He had arrived much earlier than the girls, and had thus far seemed unsuccessful in convincing Spartacus that there was a pseudogiant lurking around the area. It appeared the stalkers were planning an ambush of sorts for the bandits, which wasn't that unusual.

Bandits and stalkers didn't particularly get along.

Siesta bit down on her lip at the thought of the friendly stalkers in the area, even though she was sure they wouldn't be sticking around for very long once they actually laid eyes on the pseudogiant. She might not have known most of them, but they were still comrades in arms stuck in the same shitty situation she was.

The girls were jolted to attention when gunfire erupted below. The stalkers had opened fire, sending any bandits that were in the open scattering for cover. Louise gawked, seeing an unfortunate bandit that had been standing near the large doorway of the furnace building slump to the ground.

It hadn't hit her as hard as she thought it would, but Louise realized she had just seen somebody die for the first time. Somebody that hadn't been previously zombified, at least.

Louise's eyes were locked on the body with morbid curiosity. Her stomach felt sick, and she was sure she could see blood leaking out onto the concrete floor. The bandits didn't take long to return fire, escalating the cacophony of gunfire to a new level. It was almost overwhelming. There was far too much noise. Louise couldn't begin to imagine what a full- scale war with weapons like these would sound like.

She really didn't want to find out, either.

Louise gawked again, seeing a stalker fall. He writhed on the ground, screaming in agony as blood oozed from his wounds. She couldn't take this. People were dying and she was just lying on a roof watching as if it were some kind of grotesque play. A stolen glance at Siesta told Louise that the former maid had seen her fair share of things like this. Siesta's face was a mask as she continued to observe through her binoculars.

Before either of the girls could do anything more, the pseudogiant chose now to make its presence known. The building that sat next to the multi-story building was significantly shorter, while at the same time being much taller than the one Louise and Siesta were on. Its walls were broken up by lengths of dirty glass that wrapped around the building up high, and it had a few large garage doors to allow the entry of vehicles.

One such door was wedged halfway open. The pseudogiant flew through the opening with the top of its head clipping the bottom of the garage door, leaving a noticeable outward dent. It let out a furious roar, gaining the horrified attention of every stalker and bandit alike.

The gunfire came to an abrupt halt as everyone realized what was about to happen. Then the call drifted out across the ranger station.

 _"Pseudogiant!"_

A few less experienced bandits opened fire on the beast out of fear. The giant roared again, charging headfirst in the direction the pain was coming from, ignoring the stalkers altogether and caring not of the bullets tearing into its body. The pseudogiant charged into the furnace building at full-throttle, making its entrance through a wall rather than the more logical main entrance.

"Oh my God!" Louise cried, watching as the pseudogiant began to wreak pure havoc. "What are we going to do now? Can all of these people together kill it?"

"Maybe. I... I don't know," Siesta said. She pointed down to the stalkers. "Look. Spartacus and his guys are leaving."

Louise followed the Siesta's finger, finding that the stalkers were hastily making their retreat. A few stalkers still lay on the ground, having expired during the brief exchange of fire with the bandits.

"The smart thing to do would be to follow them," Louise pointed out nervously.

"Yes, it would," Siesta nodded, shooting Louise a look. "But we're not that smart, are we? Get ready. The giant is distracted, we have to move soon because those bandits aren't going to last very long."

Louise silently nodded, rising to a crouched position and grabbing up her Kalashnikov. She chambered a round, making sure the weapon was ready to fire. Even if these bandits may have been the less than reputable types, she prayed for their souls, and that they would be a sufficient distraction to keep the pseudogiant away.

The stage was set for them to move on the tank of gas and make their escape, but of course, something had to muck everything up.

"Whoa!" Siesta remarked, pointing with her binoculars still pressed to her face. "What the hell is going on over there?"

Louise followed Siesta's finger yet again. In front of the multi-story building, they could both clearly see bolts of green electricity arcing through the air in a localized area. A green oval formed in the air, starting off as a mere dot and quickly expanding in size.

"Shit! No way!" Siesta gawked. "That's... that's it! That's what brought me here! Holy shit!"

Siesta found the binoculars snatched from her grasp. Louise brought the device to her eyes, observing the oval much more closely. If this was a way out of here, it certainly had some great timing.

As it turned out, the oval's intention was not to take somebody from the Zone and bring them somewhere else, it was the exact opposite. Siesta watched through squinted eyes as a person was clearly spat out in a heap.

Louise's eyes went wide behind the binoculars. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. The person stirred quickly, the volume of the nearby gunfire likely rousing them to attention. Siesta attempted to snatch the binoculars back, but found her hands viciously slapped away. Siesta clicked her tongue, and resorted to squinting uselessly. She watched as the person quickly got on their feet, wary of the ridiculous fight occurring frighteningly nearby.

The person was distinctly female, and wore a flowing black mantle similar to the one Louise had worn when she had first come to the Zone. The person wasted no time in standing around, it only took a moment for her to disappear into the safety of the multi-story building.

Siesta finally managed to snatch her binoculars back with a sour glare crossing her face. "Was that person wearing an Academy uniform? I couldn't really tell because some pink-haired asshole wouldn't give me my freakin' binoculars back."

Louise returned the glare. "They were."

"Well? Did you know who it was then?"

"I... I think... I'm not sure actually," Louise admitted. "I was... um, shaking too much to see clearly."

"Louise, we don't have time for this!"

Siesta could only stare as Louise was suddenly on her feet, quickly moving for the edge of the roof. There was a cargo truck left derelict next to the garages, allowing them an easy way onto and off of the building's roof.

"Hey! Wait! Where the hell are you going!?"

"I've got to go help that person!" Louise returned, turning back to face the stalker.

"What!?"

"Oh, come on!" Louise growled angrily. "You helped me didn't you? This is the same thing! I can't just leave somebody that's just been thrown into the same situation as myself! Not if I can help them!"

"But there's a fucking Pseudogiant!"

Louise had enough and turned away. "It doesn't matter!" She dropped from the roof, landed on top of the truck's cab, moved down to the bonnet, and then to the ground.

"No - Louise! Shit!" Siesta yelled, finding that Louise was not stopping for her words. She had wanted to say that the person would most likely be completely fine if they remained hidden away in the large building. Siesta quickly found herself following in Louise's tracks, her worry for her companion's well-being greater than her desire to retrieve the Perin B3. "God damn, fucking shit. Freaking Nobles. Freaking stupid Nobles," Siesta grumbled all the while.

Louise flew across the compound as fast as her legs could carry her. The gunfire inside the furnace building was so hectic and overwhelming that she found herself almost stumbling periodically. The furious roars of the pseudogiant were still audible, but only barely so. She was also sure she could hear human screams of horror.

 _Those poor souls... Sure they're bandits, but still..._

The pseudogiant burst forth from a wall, snarling and stomping the ground. Louise froze, seeing the creature bleeding all over from what must have been over a hundred gunshot wounds by now. The creature did not register her existence. Instead, it appeared to be circling around the building for a different angle of attack.

Putting that aside, Louise swiftly entered the multi-story building, her Kalashnikov shouldered and ready. There didn't appear to be anybody in the vicinity of the stairwell. Siesta didn't take long to stomp in behind her, the Mosin ready for action.

"I can't believe you," Siesta groused, her face creased with anger. "Seriously, we're going to miss our chance to get out of here! We'll be killed!"

"You don't exactly inspire confidence, you know."

"I'm not trying to! I'm too pissed off to do that!" After a short glaring contest, Siesta relented. "Whatever then. Let's just look for... whoever this person is and we'll go from there."

"Right."

They moved forwards, intent on beginning their search with the ground floor. However, it seemed their search would be quite short. They both froze at the clops of two shoes hitting the floor behind them. Swiftly turning around with weapons raised, Louise was greeted with a troubling sight. Her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets as her jaw dropped.

Flaming red hair, dark skin, and enormous breasts.

It was none other than Kirche von Zerbst standing in the room with them, her wand raised at the pair after likely levitating down from the landing above. No words were exchanged, and from the deadly serious look on Kirche's face, Louise was willing to bet she hadn't recognized her yet.

Louise then idly realized that this was the perfect chance to get rid of the person who had bullied her so much throughout her time at the Academy. She had a gun. Spells were not faster than bullets. Nobody would ever know. Of course, as much as she loathed Kirche, Louise wasn't going to just shoot her down.

An explosion outside was easily heard above the gunfire, causing the three occupants of the room to flinch.

Siesta was first to lower her weapon, slowly. She took her trigger hand off of the rifle altogether, holding it up as if to say she meant no harm. Louise followed suit.

"I... I don't know who you people are," Kirche began, lowering her wand, though she still looked completely ready to flick out a spell at a moment's notice. "But I would greatly appreciate it if... if..."

Louise's stomach twisted in a knot as Kirche looked her straight in the eyes. The red-head's eyes narrowed, and Louise paled.

Oh no. Kirche was going to recognize her.

Kirche suddenly approached Louise very swiftly, causing Siesta to move to raise her weapon. Kirche pulled back the hood from Louise's head, causing her bright pink hair to spring out as if it were under pressure. In any other situation, Siesta would have laughed wholeheartedly at the sight, but now wasn't really the time.

"Louise?" Kirche asked, cupping Louise's face in her hands. "Louise... is... is that really you? What's happened to your face? It's-"

Kirche's hands were quickly swiped away by Louise's free hand as she glared. "Do you know how long it took me to get all of my hair to stay inside that hood?"

"It is you!" Kirche exclaimed. She swiftly drew Louise into a bone crushing hug.

From her facial position between Kirche's breasts, Louise gawked. Was Kirche actually happy to see her? Why in the world would Kirche be happy to see her? They hated each other! The hug was also becoming incredibly awkward for Louise, being that her face being planted right in the taller girl's bosom. The bandaged portion of Louise's face flared in pain.

Siesta observed with interest, raising an eyebrow at the sight. Perhaps this was one of Louise's friends from school?

Louise pried herself away from Kirche, her glare unwavering. Kirche looked confused at the action, hurt almost, but Louise had already deduced that if Kirche was any bit happy to see her, it was only because she could now begin to bully her once again.

"What do you think you're playing at, Zerbst?" Louise hissed. Kirche opened her mouth to respond, but the sound of another explosion drifting through the air cut her off.

"Listen," Siesta interjected, gaining the attention of the two mages. "You guys can make out later. There are more important things to worry about right now."

Louise glared at Siesta, before her glare returned to Kirche. "Indeed. There are much more pressing matters right now. We can talk about us later."

Kirche looked between the two girls in confusion as they both approached a window near the entrance. They crouched down close to each other, pointing and commenting quietly. As for Kirche, she quite literally had no idea what was going on. One minute she was walking along one of the outer walls of the Academy to get some air, the next, everything was black and she had the distinct sensation of falling. She couldn't clearly remember what had happened, it was all too fuzzy.

She did, however, remember there being a bright green flash.

Kirche observed the building around her. It didn't look like a building that would belong in Halkeginia, the walls, the floor, even the ceiling were odd, and it all looked so old and neglected.

There was also the matter of the ridiculous amount of gunfire outside. She had heard plenty of muskets fired before, but such a volume of fire would require hundreds of musketeers. Although the sounds of the guns seemed to be waning, it was still incredibly loud.

Just where in the world was she? Why was Louise here with some strange woman? How was Louise still alive? What in the name of God was going on?

"Hey, listen," Kirche addressed as she approached Siesta and Louise. "Just what exactly is going on? One minute I'm at school and the next I'm here in a... God it sounds like a warzone out there."

Louise only seemed inclined to glare. Siesta sighed, figuring that perhaps Louise and this other girl weren't friends then. She opened her mouth to explain, but her tongue was held when the gunfire came to a quick end. The ranger station had suddenly become deathly silent.

"Oh no," Siesta said. "That's definitely not good."

"What do you mean?" Kirche asked, crouching down near Siesta. "Why is that not good?"

"Okay, okay," Siesta breathed. "Quick explanation. We're in here. There's a shitload of bandits with guns in that building right there, and there's this pseudogiant-thing trying to kill all of them. In the building behind that building, there's this thing we absolutely have to get. So as you can you can probably imagine this puts us in quite a dilemma."

"Right," Kirche didn't particularly understand what she'd just been told. "I... uh. I see."

"Do you think they've killed it?" Louise asked hopefully, trying her best to ignore Kirche's presence. "I mean, the gunfire stopped. So they probably killed it, right?"

"No way," Siesta replied. "All of those bandits are dead."

"There were well over a dozen of them!" Louise hissed. "How can that be?"

"It can, and it is."

"I don't believe that," Louise insisted.

Siesta looked Louise straight in the eyes. "They're all dead. I promise you."

Louise would obviously much rather if the giant were the one dead. "Then what do we do now?"

Siesta looked indecisive. "I don't know. Honestly. Let's just... wait for a minute."

Louise stared into the furnace building, unable to make anything out. Despite all of the new doorways it was still too dark inside, and now it had become far too quiet. If the bandits were still alive, they'd surely be making some sort of noise. Then again, if the pseudogiant were still alive it would likely be doing the same.

Louise felt a poke at her shoulder. She glanced, spying Kirche. "What?" She asked impatiently.

"What is that you're carrying?" Kirche queried. "What is that you're wearing?"

Louise did not want to interact with Kirche in any sense of the word. "It's a gun that I'm carrying if you're so insistent on knowing." She purposefully ignored the comment about her attire.

"What? That doesn't even look like a gun," Kirche pointed to Siesta's rifle. "That looks like a gun. What you've got there just looks... weird."

Louise glared. "What are you on about? Of course my gun looks like a gun," Louise held up the AKS-74U, pointing at the end of the muzzle brake. "See? This is the bit where the bullets come out of!"

"But what is this for?" Kirche asked, pointing to the Kalashnikov's curved magazine. "It just seems unnecessary."

"Will you two shut the fuck up?" Siesta growled, gaining glares from both mages. "This isn't really the time to be arguing about whose gun looks more like a gun. They're both guns."

Louise opened her mouth to retort, but was cut off when Kirche cried out in horror. "Founder above! What is that thing!?"

Both Siesta and Louise's heads snapped to look through the window. They gawked in horror.

The pseudogiant was very much alive.

It lumbered out though a gaping hole in the side of the furnace building, looking absolutely ragged. The creature's body was covered with gunshot wounds, scorch marks, and the creature was missing sizable chunks of flesh in many areas, the most notable being on top of its head where bone had become visible.

Worst of all, Siesta found herself staring directly into its eyes. It could see her.

"How in the bloody hell is that thing alive!?" Louise shrieked.

The beast let out a primal roar as it began its advance.

"Oh fuck me!" Siesta shouted, smashing the barrel of her Mosin through the window and letting off a shot. The bullet impacted right on the pseudogiant's face, seemingly having no effect. Louise decided to give her weapon a try, and moved to stand in front of the doorway. She let off the entire magazine in a full automatic barrage. The creature did not stop.

Kirche was shocked at the volume of fire that had come from such a small weapon. She couldn't even imagine how such a weapon could fire so many times over and over. Her ears rang painfully, but she had no time to contemplate any possible lasting damage to her hearing.

"Run! Run!" Siesta cried, already on her feet. Louise and Kirche both eagerly followed behind as the former maid darted into a nearby room. Siesta approached a window and smashed it out with the butt of her rifle. "Quick! Through the window!"

Siesta hit the ground running, closely followed by Kirche. Louise vaulted through the window last, just as the distinct sounds of the main entrance being made much larger reached her ears. Louise followed as Siesta veered, making a bee-line towards the furnace building. They quickly reached the cover of the large building, hearing the frustrated and pained roars of the pseudogiant drifting across the compound.

They had lost it, for now. That seemed to have made the creature quite angry.

"Shit," Siesta breathed, seeing the sheer amount of death and destruction inside the building. She had been expecting it, but to see it in person was another thing altogether. Only one furnace remained standing, while the others had been reduced to heaps of twisted metal. Numerous pseudogiant-sized holes dotted the walls, and there were bodies absolutely everywhere.

Kirche covered her mouth, seeing the gruesome state of the bodies. Bandits had been crushed, thrown, torn apart, and maimed in ways she hadn't even thought possible. Just what kind of place was this? She felt like throwing up, but not only because of the visuals. The stench of death hung heavy in the air.

Siesta turned to Louise. "I told you they were all dead."

Louise's face had taken on a ghostly shade at the sight of the dead. She couldn't think of a retort, but it wasn't the time or place for it anyway. With shaking hands, she unlocked the empty magazine from her carbine and fished another from her coat.

They all jumped when the sound of a wall being smashed reached their ears. Carefully observing through a nearby hole in the wall, they watched as the pseudogiant emerged from the multi-story building through a hole it had made where a window had used to be. It grunted, ignorant of the girl's whereabouts, and stomped away, making its way around the furnace building.

Louise gritted her teeth. The creature was going to end up right in their way for sure. Could it possibly know what they were here for? She certainly hoped not. Besides, it was just too stupid for that, right?

"Well," Louise swallowed, trying her damnedest to keep her eyes off of the shredded bodies and exposed innards. "Now what do we do?"

"Uh... wait for it to go to sleep?" Siesta offered with a sheepish expression. Louise and Kirche both eyed her flatly. Siesta sighed. "Right, right. Well... I don't really know. This is only the second time I've ever seen one of these things."

"Well, what did you do then?" Kirche asked, attempting to be productive much to Louise's ire. "How did you kill it?"

The trio jumped as a crash followed by the pseudogiant's familiar roar came from somewhere outside. Siesta looked in the vague direction of the sound with her brow furrowed. "We didn't kill it. We couldn't. All we had were rifles."

"Great," Louise breathed, feeling entirely hopeless.

"Don't give me that," Siesta growled, turning back. "Didn't you see it just now? How does something take that much punishment and just keep going?"

Louise opened her mouth to retort snappishly, but decided against it at the last second. Siesta was certainly right about the pseudogiant's durability.

"We could use magic," Kirche put in. She immediately found two pairs of eyes on her.

"What do you mean?" Louise asked impatiently.

"I can use my magic against it. That way it'll be distracted while you two do whatever it is you have to do and get out of here."

Siesta was thoroughly surprised as she processed Kirche's words. "Wait. You want to go out there and distract that thing? You've been here for like, ten minutes, and you want to do something like that?"

Kirche nodded seriously, while Louise stared in disbelief. "That is insane. Why would you even want to do that?"

Kirche simply brandished her wand, feeling her reasoning was perfectly sound. "I have my magic, so I'll be fine." She turned on her heel and stiffly began to march outdoors. Louise and Siesta both gawked at Kirche's back, before turning to face each other.

"Who the hell is this girl? She's pretty confident in her damn magic!" Siesta barked, flabbergasted.

Louise pinched the bridge of her nose. Despite her feelings towards Kirche, she had to do something. Kirche deserved plenty of things, Louise felt, but death wasn't one of them. "I've... listen, I-I-I've got to go help her before she gets herself squashed. Just... get the nerve gas, o-okay? I'll bring her to the Skadovsk after you escape."

Siesta remained silent and glanced around the room, thinking hard. Her eyes settled on a particular body not too far away. She looked back to Louise, who was desperate. "No way," Siesta said.

Louise's desperation quickly changed to frustration. "What do you mean 'no way'!? Honestly, there's no time to argue over something like this! We've-"

"No," Siesta said firmly. "There's no way in hell I'm just gonna leave you here."

"Siesta, please! This is not-"

"Louise I'm not leaving you!" Siesta yelled. She looked over her shoulder, spying the body she had noticed earlier again. "Go and help her, I've got an idea, I think. We're gonna kill that thing."

Siesta watched as Louise slowly backed away, her head shaking in disbelief. "I sincerely hope your idea is nothing short of brilliant, Siesta."

Louise turned away and jogged in the same direction Kirche had gone. Watching her go, Siesta breathed deeply. Despite their differences, Siesta was quickly beginning to think of Louise as a friend, and Siesta didn't just leave friends behind. She swiftly approached the body she had been eyeing earlier, trying her best to ignore its lack of legs. The black and red color scheme of the stalker's suit stuck out amongst the sea of black trench coats.

Siesta narrowed her eyes. What was a Duty stalker doing in Zaton?

Outside, Louise easily found Kirche standing out in the open. The pseudogiant was visible at the other end of the compound, currently trying to force its way into the building she and Siesta had been spying on the bandits from. It hadn't noticed either of them yet as it pounded on the garage doors.

"Kirche," Louise greeted on her approach

Kirche eyed Louise like she had grown a second head. "Louise, what are you doing?"

Louise pointed to the pseudogiant. "I'm going to help you."

"Where is the other girl then? Is she escaping?"

Louise shook her head. "Not quite, actually. Sh-she's got a plan so... don't worry."

Kirche shifted on her feet, sighing. "Louise, listen... about back at the Academy..."

"This isn't the time, Kirche. I've already told you."

"But I-"

"It can wait," Louise ground out. Her final statement had been too loud, it seemed. The pseudogiant whirled around to face the girls with a stare that was both sharp and 'not all there' at the same time. "Uh-oh," Louise squeaked, raising her carbine to bear. "I-I was ready for this a minute ago, but n-now I'm not so sure."

Kirche smirked and raised her wand. "It'll be fine, I mean look at it. How much more can it take?" Despite the confidence in her voice, Kirche suddenly had the sinking feeling that she was about to regret saying those words.

Ground shaking beneath its massive hand-like feet, the pseudogiant charged with reckless abandon towards the girls. Louise held her breath as she let the Kalashnikov spew bullets in short bursts, letting them last longer and longer as the giant neared. Kirche curiously observed the weapon operate - but only for a scant moment - before beginning her attack.

"In ex dest flame, Fireball!"

A melon sized ball of fire formed at the tip of Kirche's wand and rocketed towards the charging giant. It hit the pseudogiant head on, exploding and engulfing the creature in flames.

While this did have the effect of setting the pseudogiant on fire and making it rather angry, it did not slow the mutant's advance. Thus, Kirche and Louise discovered on this day that the only thing more terrifying than an angry pseudogiant was an angry pseudogiant that was also on fire. Kirche gawked in horror while Louise unlocked her empty magazine. Reaching for a new one inside her coat, Louise realized that the pseudogiant was certainly going to flatten the both of them if they didn't move now.

"We've got to-" Louise began as she started to move, but stopped, finding Kirche's arms around her waist from behind rooting her in place. She squirmed. "What do you think you're doing!? We're going to die!"

Louise was quickly proven wrong as they both shot straight up into the air, just in time for the pseudogiant the pass underneath them. Louise eyed the arms that held her, seeing a wand clenched tightly in one. The spell was easy enough to recognize.

Levitation.

Louise locked a new magazine into the carbine, chambered a round, and then let loose on the pseudogiant once more with a yell of anger. Bullets slammed into the creature's flesh and tore up the ground around its feet as it ran, confused. It circled the floating pair of humans, unsure of what to do.

Louise ejected the emptied magazine, simply letting it fall to the ground about twenty feet below. She loaded another.

"Die! Die!" Louise screamed in anger. Smoke wafted from the Kalashnikov's heated barrel as she squeezed off more rounds. "Just die! Why won't you just die!?"

"I've got to set us down somewhere!" Kirche shouted over the automatic fire. "Before my levitation wears off!"

"O-on a roof, or something!" Louise replied as she ejected yet another spent magazine. The Kalashnikov's handguard was now becoming quite warm to the touch, but not uncomfortably so. "Just somewhere where it can't reach us! I'm willing to wager that it can't jump very well!"

Kirche nodded as they gently floated towards the building Louise knew to have the tank of nerve gas waiting inside. Just as their feet touched the sloped surface of the roof, Louise found herself tackled flat to the shingles by the red-headed Germanian.

The air above them wooshed as an undoubtedly large object passed over them, crashing into the roof's peak. Louise gawked, seeing a large section of concrete now sticking out of the roof.

"Did it just throw that!?" Louise screeched, quickly scrambling to her feet.

"Yes!" Kirche yelled back, flinging another hasty fireball towards the pseudogiant. Louise fired on the mutant as it came barreling towards them, slamming into the wall beneath them. "This isn't working!"

"Don't you know any other spells than 'fireball'? I thought you were good at this!" Louise barked, emptying the final few rounds out of her weapon. The giant pounded furiously on the wall with its own head, desperately trying to bring the humans down from their elevated position. The roof shook violently under their feet.

"Of course I do, but they'll take more time to prepare!" Kirche shot back, glaring. "My willpower isn't going to last either! I don't know about you but I had an entire day of magical based classes before I showed up here!"

Louise went for another magazine, freezing when only the follower topped the magazine she had retrieved instead of live cartridges. She dropped it in panic, fishing round inside her coat for another magazine. There was only one, which was empty as well. They were the magazines she had used fighting bloodsuckers. She felt like an idiot for having forgotten to fill them with ammunition.

"Kirche I'm out!"

"What!? What do you mean!? Out of what!?"

Louise stumbled as the roof shook again. "I don't have any more bullets!"

"You've got to be kidding!" Kirche cried, who had stumbled as well.

Thinking fast, Louise remembered the familiar weight hanging off her back. She held out the Kalashnikov for Kirche to take. "Hold this for a moment!"

Kirche accepted the weapon, confused. "What are you doing now?"

Louise said nothing, slinging the double-barreled shotgun off her back and into her hands. She leaned out over the edge of the roof, letting off two shells in quick succession right into the top of the pseudogiant's head. The giant seemed unfazed, continuing to destroy more of the wall. The following impacts caused Louise to lose her footing. She knew she would have fallen right over the edge if Kirche hadn't grasped her arm with an iron grip.

Louise assisted her savior with frantic kicks as they moved away from the edge of the roof. "Oh Founder that was too close!"

"This bloody thing is going to bring down this entire building before we can kill it!" Kirche growled, making ready to cast another spell. She stopped in her tracks, hearing Siesta's voice drift towards them.

"Hey! Watch out!"

The mages spied Siesta standing in one of the many gaping holes in the furnace building, a bandolier of something's looped around her arm. They watched as the stalker threw a fist-sized object towards the raging pseudogiant. It landed near the mutant's feet as Louise and Kirche both scrambled away from the edge of the roof to take cover on the other side of the peak.

An explosion erupted from beneath the pseudogiant, and its attacks on the building stopped.

Grinning wildly, Siesta pulled another RGD-5 grenade off the bandolier. She ripped the pin away, let the safety lever fly free, and then arched the explosive through the air with a strong throw. Before the giant could recover from the first grenade, the next exploded, and then another, and then another. Siesta threw grenades until there were only three left on the bandolier. Smoke and dust obscured the pseudogiant from view.

Siesta knew that the giant could be already dead. For all she knew it had died from the first grenade. Nevertheless, she awkwardly pulled the three pins from the remaining grenades, giving the entire bandolier a hefty toss. The resulting detonation was much larger than any of the previous, and Siesta felt it would serve well as a finisher if her plan had actually worked. There was only one way to find out. Siesta watched warily as the smoke and dust began to clear, her rifle shouldered and her legs ready to spring into a run at a moment's notice. If the mutant were still living, Siesta knew it wouldn't be very impressed with her. As the smoke cleared, the hulking mass of the giant became more and more visible, and from what Siesta could see, it wasn't moving. The pseudogiant was revealed to now be mostly a heap of shredded meat and spilling organs. She felt an immense feeling of relief course through her body.

She had killed it. She had killed a pseudogiant! If only she could write home to her mother about this.

Siesta emerged from the furnace building, laughing in a mix of exhilaration and disbelief. "Yeah! How do you fucking like me now?"

As Siesta approached the smouldering remains of the pseudogiant, she watched Kirche and Louise both gently float down from the rooftop above. She nodded at the pair.

"That actually went way better than I expected," Siesta revealed.

Louise scoffed, holding her magazine-less carbine loosely. "You couldn't have blown it up a little sooner? I used up all of my ammunition on it."

Siesta laughed. "Seriously? You've got no five-forty-five left?"

"Not one."

"Alright, well," Siesta spared Kirche a quick glance before turning back towards the furnace building. "One of the guys in there had an AK like yours; see what you can scrounge up, 'kay? I'll go grab the nerve gas and then we can get out of here."

Louise nodded, splitting off from her stalker comrade. Confused, Kirche looked from Louise, to Siesta, and the back to Louise. If anything, Kirche felt like she had been forgotten about. Sighing, she decided to follow after Louise.

Entering the furnace building, Kirche found Louise crouched over a mangled body looking ready to vomit at any moment.

"I'm sorry about this," Louise muttered, prying a Kalashnikov rifle from the dead bandit's hands. Siesta was right in that it was like hers, but only vaguely. It was longer, had a wooden butt stock and the magazine seemed to be curved differently. She removed the magazine from the weapon, stripping a round off the top to examine it. Already, she could tell it wasn't right.

 _7.62 x 39mm_

This Kalashnikov was in a different caliber, it seemed. Louise groaned and looked to Kirche as she approached.

"Hey, this gun is in a different caliber than mine so I can't use the bullets, do you want it?"

Kirche eyed the weapon, confused for a moment. She shook her head slowly. "No... that's quite alright, thanks. I don't think I need a... uh, a gun."

"Suit yourself," Louise muttered. She left the weapon lying on the floor as she moved on. She peered around the room, hoping to find other weapons similar to hers. It only took her a short moment to spy one, a full length AK-74 lying broken next to the dead Duty member. Louise eyed the body's lack of legs and shuddered.

 _How lovely._

Louise swiftly approached the body, vaguely aware of Kirche following her around the room. She unlocked the magazine from the destroyed Kalashnikov, pocketing it after verifying the rounds would work in her weapon. She reluctantly moved closer to the body to loot more magazines.

Taking these things from the dead felt kind of wrong. The fact that it was completely necessary eased Louise's guilt, though only a little.

"You shouldn't need a gun either, Louise," Kirche said quietly, her arms crossed tight.

"What are you on about?" Louise asked snappily.

"You've got your magic, don't you?"

"My magic?" Louise laughed bitterly, refusing to look up from her task. She began muttering. "Yes, a lot of good my 'magic' has done me. I don't even have my wand."

Kirche pinched at the bridge of her nose in a gesture of light frustration. "Listen, can we talk now?"

"Fine, start talking."

Kirche shot her arms out to her sides in an exasperated manner. "Louise I thought you were dead!" Seeing that Louise didn't really react to her statement, Kirche shook her head and heaved a ragged sigh of disbelief. "Everybody thinks you're dead, you know."

"Good," Louise said simply as she pocketed the final magazine.

"Good? How can you possibly say something like that?" Kirche asked. The pink-haired girl before her already seemed to be quite different from the Louise she had known. Then again, it was reasonable to assume Louise was just miffed at her presence.

Louise suddenly shot up to her feet, glaring. "Oh please! Quit acting like you care Zerbst. If you're-"

"I do care!" Kirche interrupted, returning the glare in full force. "I'm sorry!"

Slightly taken aback, Louise narrowed her eyes. She felt her agitation quickly boiling over into anger. "You're what?"

"I said I am sorry!" Kirche repeated. "I'm sorry for everything I've done! I'm sorry for everything I've ever said. You wouldn't believe how bad I've felt because of how I treated you! It was... a horrible thing to do. Nobody deserved that, least of all you."

Louise was silent for a moment, her glare unwavering. "Oh you're sorry? That's it? You're sorry? Is that just supposed to make everything better now? Am I just supposed to forget everything you've done? You're sorry?"

"Louise I-"

"No! I don't want to bloody hear it!" Louise shouted, her hands clenching her Kalashnikov tightly. Her face was steadily growing more and more red. "You... just... I-I-I just..."

Kirche watched with raised eyebrows as Louise screwed her eyes shut, shaking all over. Was she going to start crying?

"J-j-j... ju-jus... j-j," Louise took in a breath of air, and screamed. "Just... fuck you, Kirche! Fuck! You!"

Kirche gaped in shock. Had Louise actually just said something like that? The red-head's initial shock quickly wore off as bouts of sincere laughter came from nearby. The two mages turned to find Siesta standing by a hole in the wall with the tank of nerve gas held in her hands. Her laughter uncontrollable, Siesta crouched down and used the tank for support.

Louise sneered. "A-and what do you think you're laughing at? How much of that did you hear?"

"I heard enough," Siesta replied, still laughing. "I didn't think you even said things like that, such a dirty mouth!"

Louise scoffed. "Oh like you're one to talk."

Siesta left the tank on the floor. Her hands free, she waved dismissively. "Whatever. Did you find anything useful?"

Louise nodded with a tiny sigh through her nostrils. She pointed to the Duty stalker's corpse. "This man had more than enough ammunition. That man over there had a gun like mine, but the bullets were different."

Siesta 'ahh'd' in understanding, striding towards the body. "Was it seven-six-two by thirty-nine?"

"Uh... yes, I believe it was."

Siesta approached the body, her head bobbing slightly. She crouched down and inspected the AKM. It looked to be in decent enough condition. It was a little dirty and had its fair share of scuffs and scratches, but Siesta was sure it would function just fine. "I think I'll take it." She began stripping the body of any ammunition she could find.

Louise turned back to Kirche while she scratched at the bandaged side of her face. She felt a little dirty for having said such a vulgar word. She didn't want to imagine the repercussions if her sister Éléonore had heard that. Perhaps Siesta was beginning to rub off on her more than she'd like. However, the anger Louise had previously felt had actually decreased significantly. "Listen, I probably shouldn't have said... that," Louise said quietly.

Kirche waved her off. "It's fine. I know I deserve a lot worse than that."

Louise paused in thought. Siesta seemed to be always able to put the small arguments and heated exchanges behind. Maybe she could do the same. Then again, how Kirche had treated her during her time at the Academy was a little more than a mere argument. Louise had felt like she was in hell at the time.

Perhaps her time in the Zone had changed her perspective on how horrible life could actually be.

"I think I'm willing to try and put our past behind us, Kirche," Louise began, her eyes averted from the Germanian's. "I-I mean, I can't just outright forgive you for what you've done, but... l-l-like I said, let's just put it behind us."

Kirche, rather surprised at Louise's sudden change of heart, nodded with a slight smile. "I'd like that. If there's any way I can begin to make up for it, I'm willing to do it."

Scoffing, Louise rolled her eyes. "Well, volunteering to distract the pseudogiant was actually a brilliant start, if I'm honest. I really can't think of anything to top that."

Kirche laughed lightly, while Louise allowed herself a small smile.

"Actually," Louise began, watching as Siesta approached with the AKM hanging in one hand, the tank of Perin B3 in the other, and Mosin slung onto her back. Louise quickly approached the former maid and removed the tank from her grasp. "You could carry this."

Kirche accepted the tank with a nod, surprised at the sudden weight.

Shrugging at Louise's actions, Siesta decided it was her turn to approach the Zone's newest visitor. "Alright, so I can't remember if I introduced myself earlier or not, but I'm Siesta."

Kirche smiled. "Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst, and I am pleased to meet you."

Siesta shot Louise a smirk. "She's certainly polite."

"What? I'm polite," Louise insisted.

"You already said 'fuck you' to her. That's not very polite at all."

"S-shut up! That's your fault! You're a bad influence!"

"A bad influence? What are you, like eight years old?" Siesta watched the red return to Louise's face with a little amusement. She turned back to Kirche. "I'm sure you've got tons of wonderful questions about where you are, and what exactly is happening. I'll fill you in during the walk."

"A-ah. I'd appreciate it," Kirche watched as Siesta started off. She gave Louise a glance, who seemed to be waiting for her to move. "I'm not going to like what she's got to say, am I?"

Louise exhaled through her nose. "Well, I definitely didn't."

* * *

 _A/N: Oh my God, long chapter was longer than I expected. I would have split it up but I felt there wasn't a very good place to do so._

 _Ah well, I got the content I wanted in it so I'm satisfied._

 _Anyway, I know some of you were expecting Montmorency to show up, but nope. We'll see how Monty-chan is doing once more before this arc is over. She'll play a much larger part during the second arc._

 _And Kirche, hmm..._

 _I feel that some of you might not be pleased with her showing up the way she did, but that was how I had planned the third member of their group to show up from the beginning, so I felt I should stick with it. She'll provide some valuable services to the group, such as giving the three of them the ability to fluently speak Ukrainian, and the ability to catch things on fire, a lot._

 _Fun fact: During the initial planning stages of this story, I had originally scripted a teenaged version of Louise's mother to be the one to show up. One of the main points of their interaction would be Louise trying not to let it spill that she was actually her future daughter. But since Karin is so OP in canon-verse, I decided to change that fairly early on._

 _Then again, I may or may not do an omake between each arc, so you might get to actually see that. Along with some other ridiculous characters and situations that just wouldn't fit in the normal story._

 _Long author's note is becoming far too long. It's currently two in the morning as I am writing this after finishing my final edits, so goodnight._


	10. Humble Beginnings X

_Humble Beginnings X_

 _Zaton_

 _16:03_

"They're seriously not there."

Kirche stumbled. Most of her attention had been directed at the sky to the point where she had begun walking backwards. She looked to Louise, who was eyeing her flatly, and then back to the sky. "But... it's impossible," Kirche remarked distantly. "Th-they've got to be around somewhere, you must have just missed them!"

"Kirche..."

Siesta stopped, annoyed. She turned around, cradling her AKM. "You can't just miss the moons. How would that even happen? They're huge. You'd have to be blind or something."

Kirche glared for a moment, but quickly opted to heave a defeated sigh instead.

"Anyway," Siesta continued, motioning to the enormous rusted ship only a dozen meters behind her. "We're literally at the Skadovsk, so let's just get inside and see if we can find Alexander or Grouse."

The stalker swiftly turned away, striding towards the ship with Louise not far behind. After a moment's hesitation, Kirche followed as well. She gripped the tank of nerve gas tightly, afraid to let it so much as touch anything. She had been told that if it were to leak in any way, they'd all be dead.

If one were to ask the Germanian, she thought it was a bit of a weird thing to be carrying around if its contents were so deadly. Even though she had been told it was completely necessary for what they were going to be doing, she wasn't reassured in the least.

Kirche wasn't even sure what exactly it was that needed doing. Siesta was nice enough to explain some basic things to her, such as why she couldn't see the moons, and how the firearms here were much more 'awesome' than the ones developed in Halkeginia, but Kirche had quickly noticed that the dark-haired girl was quite easily sidetracked. Needless to say, very little relevant explaining had actually gotten done.

Siesta approached the door and gave the lever a great heave. It managed to stick about halfway, which wasn't surprising given the amount of rust, but it was annoying nonetheless. With muttered obscenities and a few smacks, Siesta freed the lever and set it into the open position, but she hesitated in actually pulling the door open.

Louise met Siesta's eyes as she looked over her shoulder. Siesta flicked her head towards Kirche. Following suit, Louise glanced over her shoulder at the red-head. It didn't take long for Louise to get an idea as to what Siesta might be referring to, although there was no real way to predict what was happening in the former maid's head.

After registering Kirche's confused expression, Louise turned back to Siesta.

"Why do I have to say it?"

Siesta shrugged. "'Cause I want you to."

Louise huffed in annoyance. "I won't."

"You will, though."

"I honestly won't," Louise insisted.

Kirche looked between the two, at a loss. "Have I missed something? What exactly are you two talking about?"

"Kirche," Siesta grumbled with a disapproving face. "Your tits are hanging out. Button up your shirt a little."

Kirche's breath hitched in her throat. She hadn't expected that at all. Louise only massaged her temples with a single hand. She figured Siesta had been thinking something along those lines, but Louise didn't see the need to be so ridiculously blunt about it.

"Why exactly should I, uh..." Kirche cast her head downward to stare at her own cleavage. "Do that?"

"It'll attract attention," Siesta reasoned.

Kirche suddenly flashed a cat-like grin and spoke with a hint of teasing in her voice. "Don't tell me you're worried that I'm going to steal all the attention away from you."

Siesta stared intensely, bringing Kirche to the edge of being uncomfortable. Siesta finally came to a decision and, with a shrug, turned back to the door. "Alright then, don't say I didn't warn you."

Kirche sidled up next to Louise as Siesta pulled the heavy door open. "What does she mean? Why should I bother covering up?"

Louise only huffed and motioned for Kirche to enter ahead of her. Sure, during her time at the Academy Louise had found Kirche's flaunting of her own body rather annoying, closer to dreadfully indecent actually, but it wasn't a big deal. There were women like that everywhere. Louise hadn't really realized why Siesta would have wanted to Kirche to cover up, until a thought struck her.

They were the only women around. Literally the only women. Just the three of them. Siesta was quite firm in the fact that she hadn't met another female during her travels in the Zone until Louise had appeared. It had probably been months, maybe even years since any of the men in there had personally seen any exposed cleavage. Louise bit her lip in trepidation.

This might not end well. Louise hoped the Skadovsk was rather empty.

It wasn't.

The Skadovsk was teeming with activity, with the bar packed full and the din of conversation loud. The three girls stood near the entrance, Siesta looking annoyed, Louise looking tense, and Kirche curiously eyeing over the place. It wasn't long until their presence was noticed, and a wave of silence swept over the bar as everyone just stared.

Kirche leaned over to Louise, taken aback at the amount of eyes on them. "Why didn't you just say this was going to happen?"

The silence passed not long after, and conversation begun once again, conversation that was no doubt about the Skadovsk's newest visitor. Watching, Louise noticed that Siesta was scanning over the faces in the crowd in an attempt to locate either of the two men they were seeking out. Many seemed to want to approach the girls, but none actually did.

If anybody asked, Siesta hated having too much attention on herself or the people she was with. In the Zone, it attention brought nothing but trouble. Louise had been an attention grabber for a day or two, but people had quickly become accustomed to her presence. Besides, it wasn't like Louise even had breasts to show off. From what Siesta had heard when eavesdropping on random conversations it had become the general consensus that Louise was around twelve years old.

Louise found Kirche whispering to her once again. "Did you see her face just now? That could have melted iron. I definitely should have just-"

"It's too fucking late now," Siesta growled, cutting Kirche off without even looking back. Kirche glared at the back of Siesta's head as she continued. "Anyway, let's see if we can find..." She paused. "Oh, never mind. Speak of the devil."

Grouse pushed through the crowd, looking a peeved.

"Where the hell have you both been? Owl said you two went alone to get the gas, and then Spartacus and his group came back freaking out about a pseudogiant in the ranger station, and Petruha said you..." Grouse trailed, finally taking notice of the newest addition to Siesta's group. "Who the hell is this? Where are you finding these damn people?"

"Is that... You-crane-ian everyone's speaking?" Kirche asked, glancing down at Louise. She then idly commented. "That man looks rather upset about something."

"That's Ukrainian, yes," Louise nodded, observing as Siesta began tripping over her words in a vain attempt to get Grouse to listen to her. "There are others like Russian and Belarusian, but right now I honestly can't tell the difference between them."

"I see," Kirche said. Language barriers were a troublesome thing. Perhaps it could be remedied?

* * *

Alexander cast another glance over his shoulder before turning back to Grouse. They currently made their way through Zaton in the general direction of the antenna complex. "So, they just showed up with her?" Alexander asked.

Grouse nodded, his Remington resting on his shoulder. "Yeah."

"And the same thing happened with Louise? One day Siesta just showed up with her and she was wearing some ridiculous outfit like that?" Alexander asked again.

"Yeah."

Alexander hefted the nerve gas into a new grip. "That's kind of weird."

Grouse scoffed. "It's a little more than 'kind of weird' I think. Something is definitely going on. People just don't show up looking like that in the middle of the Zone."

"And Siesta won't explain anything?"

"Nope," Grouse shook his head. "She just said it was too difficult to explain. Whether that means she just doesn't want to or she doesn't have the vocabulary to do it, I don't know."

Alexander glanced behind again at the three girls following a short distance behind. He wondered what the Zone could possibly be up to now. He chuckled to himself. At least that one girl had done her shirt up all the way.

Between the three girls, conversation had been consistent but varied. Siesta had been animatedly explaining various aspects of the Zone, prioritizing things that were currently most relevant such as emissions, mutated creatures, and what they were actually up to concerning the tank of nerve gas. Kirche seemed to take it all in stride, remaining mostly silent while Siesta continued to talk on and on.

Louise thought that perhaps Kirche was still getting over the initial shock of finding out that she was so far from home that she would likely never see it again. Or maybe Kirche just wasn't fond of the idea of constantly being in mortal danger. Louise herself was not fond of either, but as much as she hated to admit it, the weapon in her hands was certainly helping her deal with the latter. She still didn't like the things, but now Louise felt a certain respect for them.

Either way, Louise thought the Kirche was taking the whole, 'you're in a completely different world where there's no such thing as Nobility and almost everything will try to kill you at some point,' part much better than she had. Kirche always did seem like the adventurous type, she had left Germania to come to school in Tristain after all.

"Wait... you're kidding. It's actually summer here?"

Louise was broken out of her thoughts by Kirche's question. Were Siesta and Kirche honestly talking about the weather? The weather, of all things!

"Yeah," Siesta nodded. "But you wouldn't think so, huh?"

Kirche shrugged. "Well it's not terribly cold, but there is a bit of a nip in the air. It's just a bit of a surprise since it was only the beginning of spring in Halkeginia."

"It's always kind of cold in the Zone," Siesta explained. "Nobody knows why."

Louise agreed with that, but it remained unvoiced. She had remained silent for most of the conversation, mostly because she didn't feel comfortable with being around Kirche all of a sudden.

"I see. So what month of summer is it?" Kirche asked.

"August," was Siesta's reply.

Kirche stopped in her tracks, her gaze flicking between Louise and Siesta. They both stared back at her.

"Why have you stopped?" Louise asked, agitated. She motioned towards the men who continued to walk on. "Come on. They'll be annoyed if we fall too far behind."

Kirche continued her pleasure stroll through the Zone with a deep sigh. "But what is... August?"

Siesta snorted. "It's a month, obviously."

"Yes, but..."

"They've named the months here differently," Louise cut in, recounting some information she had learned from Siesta during idle conversation aboard the Skadovsk. "Not all of the months have the same amount of days either. The weeks are only seven days long instead of eight, and the days are all named differently. It's a mess of a calendar, I think at least."

"Yeah, but wouldn't somebody from here would think our calendar is weird too?" Siesta pointed out. "It's all a matter of perspective."

Louise huffed, and an out of place smirk found its way across her face. "Perspective? You know, I think that's the biggest word I've ever heard you say."

Siesta stuck her tongue out at the playful jab while Kirche suppressed a single chuckle. The next few minutes of walking were spent in silence. The rustling and clinking of the group's own equipment were the only things to hear until a few short bursts of automatic fire drifted through the air from quite a ways off. Louise and Kirche were the only ones to flinch and glance about in a brief moment of surprise.

"You know, Louise," Kirche began. Louise didn't particularly react, but Kirche knew she could hear her. "After you disappeared... some rather strange things began happening."

That certainly got Louise's attention. "Strange things? What kind of strange things?"

"What I was told earlier about those, um... anomalies, really got me thinking," Kirche noticed that she had now also grabbed Siesta's attention. "After what happened at the summoning circle, the whole place got really weird."

"Really weird?" Siesta asked, intrigued. "Like, how really weird?"

"The ground, it started to crack up. It started off small, but it started spreading. The Professors barred the area from students after it was discovered, but before that, I visited it a few times. The whole place was always ridiculously warm, even in the middle of the night, and... well," Kirche considered how she was going to explain the next part. "You know the haze you see sometimes on a really hot summer's day? Something like that was coming out of the cracks, and if you-"

"Oh shit," Siesta swore, cutting Kirche off. "Let me guess. If you threw something like, I don't know, a rock or something through it, fire would start shooting everywhere?"

Kirche thought briefly on this commoner's distinct lack of manners. "Yes."

Louise sounded uneasy as she spoke. "That... can't possibly be good."

"I just thought it sounded similar to one of those anomalies you mentioned before."

Suddenly, Louise had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, much worse than the constant one she had since coming to the Zone.

"That's just the beginning, though," Kirche continued on.

Louise bit her lip. Of course that was only the beginning. Of course it would only get worse. It always got worse.

Siesta wasn't particularly pleased about what Kirche had brought to light. "Seriously?" Siesta asked.

Kirche cleared her throat with a quick 'excuse me' in preparation for her continued explanation. "Rumors started going around about animals nobody had ever seen before roaming about. It started when the palace messenger was passing through the Academy, and one of the maids overheard him mentioning it to Headmaster Osmond. I never actually saw anything like that myself, but apparently these creatures were 'ugly beyond comprehension', or so goes the rumor. It only got worse when one of the first-year students claimed to have seen something so horrible outside her window at night that she left the Academy the next morning." Kirche swallowed, and then subsequently sighed. "And then the people started to go missing."

Louise wanted to scream. It couldn't possibly be what she was thinking. It just wasn't feasible.

"I overheard some third-years talking about how one of their friends hadn't been coming to class, or even any meals. I didn't think much of it, until Montmorency started doing the same. Tabitha and I both went to her room to see if she was okay, but she wasn't even there, it hadn't even been touched since the maids had cleaned it," Kirche finished.

Silence fell over the three girls once again, but only for a brief moment.

"You've got to be kidding me, right? This is seriously heavy," Siesta pinched at the bridge of her nose, while Kirche what weight had to do with anything. "So all of this crazy stuff only began after Louise tried to summon her familiar?"

"Yes," Kirche replied.

"So basically, when Louise tried to summon her familiar, she broke Tristain?"

Louise felt like she had just been stabbed through the stomach. It seemed Siesta's thoughts had been mirroring her own. "H-hey! What are you saying all of a sudden? I didn't b-b-break Tristain! Don't say things like that!"

"Wait! No, no," Kirche tried to wave that theory off. "That's not actually what I meant at all."

Siesta didn't seem to hear Kirche. Instead, she stopped in her tracks and rounded on Louise. "Really? Well it sure sounds like you fucking broke it to me!"

Louise's face went through a few shades of red. "Shut up! How could you put that on my conscience? Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? "

"Well maybe you shouldn't have messed up your stupid-ass summoning spell!" Siesta yelled.

"Obviously I didn't try to mess up the damn spell!" Louise yelled back.

"If you two idiots don't mind!" Grouse called out, who had stopped along with Alexander after the brief shouting match had begun. They couldn't understand the context of the argument, but it wasn't the point. "Maybe you should both shut up before every damn bloodsucker in Zaton hears you!"

Siesta looked away, grumbling under her breath. She reluctantly continued walking, followed closely by Kirche and Louise.

"So... what did that man just say to us?" Kirche asked curiously, seeing as Louise didn't seem inclined to ask Siesta for a translation.

"Well he pretty much just said for us to shut up," Siesta muttered.

Kirche understood. They had been quite loud, but couldn't he have been a little nicer about it? "It seems troublesome to have to translate everything for us." She shifted her glance to Louise. "Why didn't you try to do a language spell?"

The words had left Kirche's mouth before she could realize what she was saying. She had momentarily forgotten Louise's lack of any magical instrument, and even if Louise did have one it wouldn't be much good to her. Kirche prepared for Louise's verbal wrath with a wince.

But Louise the Zero's famed verbal beating never came. "I already told you I don't have my wand, remember?" Louise pointed out weakly. "Besides... I'd probably just blow Siesta and myself to pieces if I tried."

Kirche exhaled and gave Louise a look of apology. She had truly been expecting much more than that. Like herself, it was likely Louise had already had a long day and simply didn't have the energy to keep being angry after just shouting at Siesta. Kirche had already noticed that Louise looked rather worn out and sleep deprived. The dark circles under her eyes were obvious.

Siesta gave Louise a weird look. "Okay, why exactly would you blow us up?"

"It doesn't matter," Louise muttered, refusing to meet anybody's eyes.

Kirche found Siesta looking to her for some sort of explanation, but Kirche just waved it off. It was obvious Louise hadn't explained to Siesta that she was unable to perform the simplest of spells.

"So a 'language spell'," Siesta inquired, her curiosity piqued. "What does that actually do?"

"It's pretty self-explanatory," Kirche explained. "It just lets you learn a different language in the span of about five seconds or so."

That certainly came as a surprise to Siesta. "What? Seriously? Can you do that?"

"Well," Kirche bit at her lip. "I suppose I could try it. I mean, that's how I speak Tristainian so well."

"Do it up! Come on! Right now!" Siesta urged, practically bouncing on her heels.

"It isn't a good time for something like that," Louise grumbled before Kirche could speak up.

Siesta's glare returned. "Why not? Don't you want to be able to speak Ukrainian?"

"While I would like that, do you really think that it's a good idea for people to know about us?" Louise motioned to herself and Kirche. "If Kirche does the spell, Grouse and Alexander are definitely going to start asking questions if we suddenly start speaking their language. If people find out that we're mages it'll obviously attract all the wrong kinds of attention. If we're actually going to do that spell, it should be done discreetly."

Kirche nodded in agreement. "Besides, spells like those require a lot of preparation and cost more willpower than I think I can spare right now."

Siesta felt a little sheepish. "Yeah, you've got some good points. I didn't think of that. I got a little excited for a second there." She continued when a thought struck her. "But what do you think is going to happen when we get in a fight with the bloodsuckers? What's Kirche supposed to do? Stand there and look pretty?"

Kirche let out a small laugh. "While I feel that I could do a pretty good job of that, I don't think it would be very useful."

"No," Louise began, craning her neck in a groan. Siesta had seriously not thought of this beforehand? Louise had assumed Kirche would be treated much like she had during her first day in the Zone. Simply handed a gun and told to shoot anything ugly. "It wouldn't be useful at all."

Louise jumped as Siesta suddenly gave her a pat on the shoulder. She wanted to shrug it off and reel away, but decided against it when she was met with a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry about it. We're not going in guns blazing or anything," Siesta said. "It'll be fine. They won't even know we were there."

Louise bit her lip. "Siesta, if I really did... m-make something happen in Tristain..."

Siesta's reassuring smile vanished. "Let's talk about that later, okay? There are more important things to worry about now." Siesta increased her pace, moving ahead to walk next to Alexander.

Louise's gaze drifted from the back of Siesta's head, down to her own feet. What if her magic actually was responsible for what was apparently happening in Tristain? What if these worlds were somehow now connected because of her magic? Anybody else would think it was an outlandish thought, but with all the things that had happened recently she wasn't about to simply put that theory to rest. If Kirche were here now, then could the other people that had gone missing be somewhere in the Zone as well?

Even if her thoughts were remotely true, then how did Siesta find herself here before anybody else had? Perhaps Siesta had just been unlucky, but was anybody really that unlucky?

Louise then realized that she herself, in fact, was actually that unlucky. So far it seemed as if she were the one who had started this whole thing. She sighed deeply, following it up with a groan of hopeless frustration. She'd spent her entire life messing things up, so much that she'd been completely used to it. However, now...

She had really made a mess of things this time.

"These bloodsuckers..." Kirche began warily, feeling the aura of depression Louise was putting off. "They're... uh, dangerous I'm guessing?"

Louise's features were creased in a deep frown as she nodded. She looked to Kirche and pointed to the bandages on her face. "They're invisible when they're hunting you. Once they get close, you'll see them. That's how I got this."

"Invisible?" Kirche asked in disbelief. "And it's not magic at all?"

"Well as far as I know it's not. The most magical thing in the Zone is probably you."

Kirche was silent. A world without magic? She wouldn't have imagined such a thing in a thousand years, and couldn't help but feel that this was simply too much to just be thrown into. "What are we going to do, Louise?" She asked.

Louise quirked an eyebrow. "Well we're going to go to the bloodsucker lair and-"

"No, no," Kirche interrupted. "I mean in the long run. What are we going to do?"

Louise scoffed, shifting her Kalashnikov in her arms. "Are you honestly asking me for some kind of advice?"

Kirche knitted her brows together. "In case you haven't noticed, you've been here longer than I have."

While this was true, today was only Louise's sixth day in the Zone. She gave a shrug. "All we can do is survive, Kirche."

Ahead of the two mages, Siesta had been conversing with Alexander and Grouse about their game plan for the bloodsucker lair.

"I seriously hope your plan is a little more elaborate than opening the valve and throwing it in through a window," Alexander said to Grouse.

Grouse let out a single chuckle. "I don't know if you noticed last time, but there's a small building set slightly away from the main one. In there, is all the equipment that runs antenna complex's ventilation system. We're going to try and hook it up to that."

"How do you know this?" Siesta asked, surprised.

Grouse shrugged. "I did my homework."

Alexander laughed. "Yeah, of course you did, detective."

* * *

The antenna complex was eerily quiet.

In front of them lay about one-hundred meters of open ground, with a chain link fence looming at the end that was topped with intimidating razor wire. It would have been a pain to scale over, but thankfully more sections of the fence lay flat on the ground than standing.

Not far from the mostly-collapsed fence, a small square building sat innocently away from the main building. They had purposefully circled the compound so their point of entry would be as close as possible to this building. Inside it, the ventilation equipment was supposedly located.

Siesta had explained this much to Louise and Kirche. Louise didn't particularly understand how most of the contraptions in the world functioned, but right now it didn't matter. Anything that would help them kill the bloodsuckers would be welcomed with open arms.

Alexander was crouched near Grouse, who observed the area though a pair of binoculars. Siesta had taken up position slightly behind Alexander, looking over his shoulder through her own set of binoculars. Louise and Kirche stood back a few meters, the latter leaning her back against a tree with arms crossed.

Louise felt a small weight fall onto her boot, and glanced down out of curiosity to find a frog sitting idle on the toe of her right boot. With a yelp, Louise's foot kicked straight out to send the amphibian flying into the brush.

Kirche kept her voice hush. "What was that about?"

"There was a frog."

Kirche smirked. "Are you frightened of frogs?"

"Yes," Louise replied, a sour look on her face. "They're disgusting."

"Seriously? Frogs?"

"Genuinely."

Louise got the feeling that Kirche thought it was a little idiotic to be frightened of frogs. Of course, the thought of frogs didn't actually elicit any fear in her, she just thought they were disgusting and slimy and she didn't want to touch them or be near them in any way, shape, or form.

It was normal for a girl to feel that way, wasn't it?

Grouse lowered his binoculars. "Do you see anything, Siesta?"

Siesta lowered her own binoculars and shook her head.

"Alright," Grouse put away the observation device and racked a shell into the shotgun's chamber. "Let's get in there and see what we can do."

Siesta nodded and motioned for Louise and Kirche to follow. The group left the cover of the trees, moving across the open ground at a brisk pace. Kirche frowned as they moved, and the ominous sight of the antenna complex only made her feel that something bad was about to happen here. If she were to continue to hide her magic, she was going to be just as useful as a desk chair in a fight. Her hand itched to brandish her wand. Kirche still couldn't completely wrap her head around the fact that there were no mages here. She was in a place where magic wasn't supposed to exist.

She was even still having a hard time getting over the fact that Louise wasn't actually dead like she and many others had thought.

A downed section of chain-link fence rattled as the group bounded over it, and they reached the target building in no time at all. Grouse and Alexander entered first, while Siesta turned to her two female companions.

"You guys wait out here and make sure nothing sneaks up on us, alright?"

Louise nodded and Siesta promptly disappeared into the building. The former maid quickly found the two men standing at the far end of the building. It seemed they had located the ventilation equipment they were searching for. To Siesta, it was only a mess of pipes, valves and filters.

"Well," Alexander said hesitantly, setting the tank on the floor. "How are we going to do this?"

"I'm not sure," Grouse admitted. "I don't think the guys who designed this place had our situation in mind."

Outside, Kirche was feeling far from comfortable.

"Seriously, what am I supposed to do if I can't use any magic?" Kirche asked, annoyed. "It's like telling somebody, 'oh, you're not allowed to use your arms anymore,' it's bothersome!"

"Just keep quiet," Louise growled. Her carbine was shouldered and ready for action. "We don't want those things to know that we're-"

Louise was cut off as a distinctive chorus of howls drifted through the air.

Kirche stiffened. "Um... what was that?"

"B-bloodsuckers!" Louise sputtered. Kirche turned to find Louise's eyes wide with fear. "D-d-dozens of them!"

"Don't act so afraid!" Kirche shot back worriedly. "It's going to rub off onto me!"

"Too bad, I'm afraid!" Louise cried. "Y-y-you will be too once you lay eyes on these things!"

Siesta came stomping out of the building. "I heard the word 'bloodsuckers'. All of this noise better be for a good fucking reason."

"Dozens of them!" Louise repeated, her gaze sweeping over the area for any signs of movement.

Siesta nearly choked. "What? Shit!"

"W-we haven't actually seen any yet," Kirche added. "But Louise seems fairly certain we've heard one or more of them at least."

"Oh I'm bloody certain alright!" Louise gripped her Kalashnikov tighter.

"Fuck," Siesta swore, her face contorted in frustration. "I gotta warn the guys, hold on."

Louise cast one last wary look around as Siesta disappeared into the building. She let her weapon hang from her arm on its sling while she drew her Makarov. Louise chambered a round and then held the pistol out for Kirche to accept. "Here, take it. This gun can only fire eight times before it needs to be reloaded, so don't waste any shots."

"What?" Kirche eyed the firearm with a gawk, like it could bite her hand off. "I don't even know how to use a regular gun, let alone something ridiculous like this!"

"Just pull the trigger," Louise advised, pushing the weapon into the Kirche's hands. "If I can do it, I-I'm sure you can."

Kirche bit her lip. She had started to sweat despite the chilly temperature and wasn't feeling particularly confident, mostly because she couldn't use her magic. "Th-that's not true. I'm not courageous like you and-"

"Courageous?" Louise scoffed nervously. "Have you finally lost it, Zerbst? I am most definitely not c-c-courageous. You're the one who volunteered to distract the pseudogiant, in case you've forgotten!"

"Yes but I was under the impression that it was going to be seriously injured when I set it on fire!"

"Listen, just-"

Louise didn't have time to finish, because a familiar throaty hiss came from somewhere to her front. The bloodsucker revealed itself quickly, and brazenly, charging forward as it brought itself into the visible spectrum. With a scream of surprise and fear, Louise unleashed a full-automatic burst into the creature's torso. The bullets tore into its flesh with ease, and it tumbled forward and slid face-first on the grass.

"Oh God!" Kirche cried, sizing up what Louise had just killed. "That's just hideous!"

Louise didn't respond, instead she chose to listen closely. She could hear the bloodsuckers all around them, breathing, hissing and shuffling about. They were surrounded.

Not more than a second later, both Siesta and Alexander came barreling out of the building with weapons ready. Siesta immediately opened fire, the muzzle of her AKM flaring as she let out a burst towards where she suspected a bloodsucker to be.

"They're on the left!" Siesta warned in Ukrainian, following a shadow and opening fire. A bloodsucker promptly dropped to the ground, its neck and face torn to shreds.

"On the right too!" Alexander responded, letting out short and efficient bursts of fire. Another bloodsucker fell.

"Louise!" Siesta shouted. "To the front!"

Louise couldn't particularly see anything, but she decided to accept the warning nonetheless. She opened fire blindly, spraying bullets in a wide cone. From beyond the smoking muzzle of her Kalashnikov she watched as a bloodsucker quickly became visible and fell to the ground squirming. She promptly finished it off with the last few rounds in her magazine.

Desperately wanting to cover her ears, Kirche watched as bloodsuckers weaved in and out of existence, some dropping to the ground as bullets tore into their bodies, while others disappeared again to probe at a new angle of attack. The amount of corpses on the ground steadily increased.

"Uwaah!"

Standing slightly behind Louise, Kirche watched as a bloodsucker materialized right in front of them. Normally, it would have been quickly dispatched by Louise, but she happened to be in the middle of reloading and had subsequently realized this with a cry of fear as the blood thirsty creature made for her.

In a panic, Kirche raised the pistol she had been given and rapidly mashed down on the trigger. The feeling of a gun going off in her hand was certainly new to her, and the recoil of the nine-millimeter rounds was surprising, yet easily manageable. At such a close range, all eight rounds luckily found their way into the bloodsucker's chest. It stumbled forward, landing in a heap at Louise's feet.

Louise let out a howl of pain and a hand immediately went to cover her ear. "My ear! My bloody ear Kirche!"

It was only then when Kirche realized she had fired the gun rather close to the right side of Louise's head. Oops. "A-ah! I'm sorry I didn't realize!"

Temporarily deaf in one ear, Louise finished reloading and rejoined Siesta and Alexander in unleashing full-auto salvos as another bloodsucker weaved dangerously close.

Kirche observed the state of the little gun in her hand. The slide had locked reward, exposing the guns innards through the ejection port. She quite literally had no idea what to do with it now. Did it just need to be reloaded? Or had it been broken? She wanted to get Louise's attention, but she felt that the sheer volume of the gunfire around them would make it near impossible, and besides, she did seem rather busy as more of her bullets tore into a falling bloodsucker.

Watching Louise now, she seemed nothing like the famed 'Louise the Zero' she had been before. She, along with Siesta and Alexander were giving the bloodsuckers a run for their money. The air filled with supersonic lead, the nightmarish mutants fell left and right.

"I'm running low on ammo!" Alexander barked, locking a new magazine into his own Kalashnikov.

"We all are!" Siesta returned, letting off a long burst as a bloodsucker managed to get within near point blank range. "What the fuck is Grouse doing in there!?" Siesta was sure that at this rate they'd have all of the bloodsuckers shot before any would be killed by the nerve gas.

"Shit!" Alexander swore as a bloodsucker materialized dangerously close while he was focused on another. He was tackled to the ground, and fired point blank into the mutant's abdomen as he fell.

"No!" Louise cried, seeing what had happened out of the corner of her eye.

Alexander quickly rolled the creature off, continuing his barrage of automatic fire while on his bottom. Aside from some tears on the vest of his sunrise suit, Louise was relieved to find him unharmed.

"Alexander!" Siesta called, refusing to look towards the man for fear of a bloodsucker getting the jump on her.

"I'm good!" Alexander called back. He retrieved a full magazine from his vest, used it to actuate the magazine release and push the empty magazine away. The new magazine locked in, he reached underneath the gun and charged it with his weak hand.

Just when Kirche was feeling that this was far too much to handle, a horrifying shriek came from behind her. She whirled around, just in time to see a bloodsucker leap from the building. She dropped the pistol, her hand going straight for her wand.

Forget hiding her magic. If she didn't use it she was going to die!

Kirche reached for where she normally kept her wand, right in her cleavage. However, she had momentarily forgotten that she had buttoned her shirt all the way after leaving the Skadovsk. Her wand was trapped behind the fabric of her shirt, and there was no time to undo the buttons. Kirche hit the ground, the tentacles around the bloodsucker's mouth spreading wide as it pinned her arms with both of its bony hands. Staring into its lambent eyes was staring straight into the face of death itself.

All she could do was scream and kick uselessly.

Louise seemed to have been the only one to see what had happened, as Alexander and Siesta were both preoccupied with their own battles. She could have easily shot the mutant in the head point blank, but she had just run her current magazine dry, Kirche had her pistol, and there was no time to reload.

Whipping her head around wildly for a solution, she found one sheathed on Siesta's back, just above her bottom. Louise dropped her gun and ripped Siesta's knife from its sheath, which undoubtedly got her attention.

"Louise! What the-" Siesta could only gape in horror at what she saw. She had barely heard Kirche's screams over her own automatic weapon, but she had just assumed that the red-head was scared out of her mind.

Screaming like a banshee, Louise leapt onto the bloodsucker's back and sunk the blade into its flesh. Pulling the knife out, she sunk it into the mutant's back again, and again, and again.

The bloodsucker quickly had enough and turned its attention away from the trapped Germanian. Bucking and swinging an elbow, the bloodsucker sent Louise tumbling to the ground with her ribs flaring in pain and her breath gone. The mutant nightmare brandished its razor-like claws, intending to eviscerate Louise into a dozen pieces.

It didn't get very far.

With a loud crack, the top half of the creature's head exploded apart, showering Louise with blood and brain matter.

Wide-eyed, Louise watched as the mutant fell to reveal Grouse standing near the door pumping the action of his shotgun. She also noticed over the sound of her heavy breathing, that the gunfire had come to a stop. Alexander, still on guard, cast his gaze about warily.

"I think that might be all-"

"Louise!" Siesta shrieked. She roughly hauled the pink-haired girl to her feet by her coat with an unbelievably dark scowl on her face. "You are literally fucking insane! What the hell was that?"

"Sh-shut up!" Louise wheezed, still trying to regain her breath. She wiped at herself desperately. "Oh God it's in my hair! Its brains are in my hair!"

"Oh who cares? That was seriously badass, but it was so stupid! You could have died!"

Alexander scoffed at the two girls, extending a hand to help Kirche to her feet. He nearly asked her if she was injured, but only remembered she wouldn't understand him at the last second. She looked to be unharmed anyway, only a little dirty from hitting the ground. Kirche nodded her thanks as she got to her feet.

"Well what was I supposed to do!?" Louise barked, her glare equalling Siesta's. "Just let the bloody thing have its way with Kirche?"

"No, obviously not!" Siesta roared. "But you could have shot it with, like, oh I don't know, your fucking gun?"

"I was out of bullets! Kirche had my pistol! There was no time to reload!"

"Quit it, you two!" Grouse bellowed, his face showing that he had little to no patience left. "I got the gas hooked up as well as I can. Grab your shit and let's get the hell out of here!"

Silently, Louise handed Siesta her knife and picked up her dropped Kalashnikov and its emptied magazines from the ground. As she stood, she noticed Kirche holding out the empty Makarov for her to take. Louise stared for a moment, and accepted the pistol.

"You're alright?" Louise asked quietly as she returned the pistol to its holster.

Kirche sighed, obviously a little rattled. "Well I'm alive, that's for sure. Thanks... for that."

"W-well you shot that one while I was reloading. S-s-so it was only fair for me to repay you."

"Siesta is right though, that was properly crazy what you did."

Louise heaved a sigh, sending a jolt of pain through her chest. "Oh shut it, Zerbst."

* * *

 _"Grouse, it's Tremor. Do you Copy?"_

Grouse cast a weird look about the group before he shrugged and depressed the talk button on his radio. "Yeah I got you. What's up?" He said.

 _"Listen, I found something you need to see involving the Bloodsuckers. Meet me in the cabin at the Dock Cranes."_

He and Alexander both shared a glance before Grouse responded.

"Alright, I'll see you soon." Grouse sighed. The Skadovsk had only been about one-hundred feet away. "It's just one thing after another today."

Siesta let out a small giggle, while Louise and Kirche remained ignorant to what was being said.

Grouse turned to face everybody. "Well, you guys head into the Skadovsk for some rest or something. It's been a long day and you all deserve it. I'll check this out on my own."

Alexander only shrugged, having no problem with that, while Siesta looked a little uneasy. "Are you sure? I can go," she offered.

"Up to you," Grouse replied, not particularly caring either way.

Siesta nodded and turned to Kirche and Louise. "Louise, take Kirche back to the Skadovsk, I'll be back soon." Noticing that Louise was opening her mouth to protest, Siesta quickly continued. "Go to Owl, get some ammo for this." Siesta held the AKM out for Louise to take, which she did, and quickly passed it off to a reluctant Kirche. "And get Kirche some damn pants and a coat, alright?"

Kirche groaned. "Pants? Honestly? No, it isn't going to happen. The shirt was one thing, but pants?"

"Pants are going to happen," Louise said in an annoyed voice, splitting off with Kirche and Alexander. "The Academy uniforms are nice, I'll admit, but..."

Siesta smirked, watching as the two girls continued to argue back and forth about clothing arrangements while Alexander could only guess at what the two girls were talking about. She turned back to Grouse. "Let's go," Siesta said.

The dock cranes were not very far from the Skadovsk, less ten minutes of stomping through the marshes away. It was easily visible from the rusted ship, as it had once been the area where all cargo ships in the area would have docked. Two massive derelict cranes loomed over the area, rusted with decay.

As they trudged through the muck, Grouse glanced at the Siesta out of the corner of his eye. "How long have you been in the Zone, Siesta?"

Siesta gave the man a questioning look as she registered the query. "Why?"

Grouse shrugged. "I was talking to Petruha the other day, and he said you've been around so long you might as well be part of the furniture. I was just curious."

Siesta laughed and decided to satisfy the man's curiosity for the time being. "Years."

Grouse snorted. "After such a long time you'd probably forget what the outside world is even like, huh?"

Siesta stared straight ahead. Did he mean something by that? She quickly mentally berated herself with a quiet snort. Obviously Grouse might have suspected something weird was going on since Louise and then Kirche had just shown up out of the blue, but there was no way he could know the truth. Siesta decided on a simple answer. "Yeah."

The rest of the walk to the dock cranes was done in silence. At the far end of the docks was a collection of rusted cargo shipping containers, which had once been the location of a small stalker camp, but due to the Skadovsk's proximity it had been abandoned. Aside from the massive cranes, the only notable structure in the area was the small wooden building that had been a shipping office of sorts at one time.

They both approached the building, intent on finding out what Tremor had found so they could get back to the Skadovsk as quickly as possible. However, upon approaching the only entrance, they stopped in their tracks.

Just outside the door, a body was laying on the ground.

"What in the..." Grouse approached the body and bent down to get a closer look. He reeled back, quickly recognizing the stalker.

Siesta recognized the deceased as well. He had been the one they had been searching for when they stumbled into the antenna complex that morning. "Danila..."

The female stalker crouched next to the body, shaking her head in disbelief. So they'd been a bit of a ways off in regards to location when they'd gone searching for him. It did seem as if the bloodsuckers had gotten to him though. It was as plain as day that he'd been drained of his blood.

Saying nothing, Grouse threw open the cabin's door and stormed inside.

"Hey! Tremor! What the hell is-"

Although it was obvious that Danila had been drained of his blood, the usual markings of a bloodsucker victim were oddly absent. Siesta scrunched her nose. Grouse had said something while they had been in the bowels of the antenna complex about the markings being different, didn't he?

"Woah, hey! Tremor? T-Tremor what are you doing?"

Siesta's eyes widened slightly. While the door was now left ajar, she was definitely out of sight. What was happening inside?

"Tremor, seriously man! Put the gun down!"

 _Wait a second, what?_

Opting for her pistol instead of the lengthy Mosin on her back, Siesta slid her sidearm free of its holster quietly. Whatever was going on inside the cabin didn't sound particularly friendly.

"I'm sorry, Grouse," came Tremor's nasally reply. He sounded rather calm, Siesta thought. "I really am."

Deciding to spring into action before it was too late, Siesta stormed into the room. It was a simple scene, Tremor had Grouse at point-blank range with a pistol in his face, while Grouse had his hands raised slightly as if he were going to try and talk the man down.

"Drop it, fucker!" Siesta growled, leveling her own pistol as the Skadovsk's doctor.

A look of surprise flashed across Tremor's face as his pistol quickly left Grouse's face and swung in Siesta's direction.

Fearing he may be caught in a potential crossfire, Grouse dived to the side and hit the floor just as the two pistols began barking at each other. He immediately saw Tremor fall to the floor in a motionless heap, and breathed a sigh of relief.

He immediately sucked the sigh back in when the sound of a second body hitting the floor reached his ears. He shot up to a sitting position, his head snapping in Siesta's direction.

"Oh shit!"

* * *

Louise was the first to fly in through the cabin's door with deep concern etched onto her face. While she didn't know Siesta that well, Louise had felt deep concern and apprehension when Alexander had frantically motioned to her and Kirche that Siesta had taken a bullet. "Siesta! Siesta, are you okay!?"

But Louise's concern for her fellow stalker was immediately met with a pained groan and a rather agitated reply.

"No I am not fucking okay! I've been shot!"

On the floor, Siesta sat and clutched at her bleeding thigh with a grimace on her face and tears of pain streaking down her cheeks. Grouse immediately rose from his crouched position next to Siesta just as Kirche and Alexander found their way in through the door.

Louise saw Tremor lying on the floor, his torso dotted with multiple gunshot wounds. She winced at the sight of the body. What happened in here?

"Here," Alexander held up a satchel by its strap. "I brought everything we need. Is the bullet still in her, or did it go through?"

"It's still in there," Grouse replied. Alexander nodded and knelt down next to Siesta.

Siesta eyed Alexander with a pained expression. If the bullet were still in her, wouldn't it have to come out? She'd been shot before, but thus far she had avoided having any slugs left lodged in her body. "D-does it have to come out?"

Alexander eyed her for a moment, trying to make sense of her accented Ukrainian before smiling reassuringly and shaking his head. "Nah. It's better to leave it in."

What? Leave it in? Now that he'd said that, Siesta kind of wanted the thing out of her. She let it go, Alexander seemed to know what he was doing.

"S-Siesta?" Louise said tenderly, trying to get close to Tremor's body without actually getting close to it. "That... um, that's Tremor, isn't it?"

Siesta nodded as Alexander tore the leg of her pants open to expose her wound. Louise immediately looked away, while Kirche observed with a sympathetic wince.

"B-b-but he was the only doctor! Who is going to fix you now?" Louise asked desperately.

Siesta scoffed. "I walked into this room and he – shit!" The former maid cried out in pain as Alexander got to working at her wound. He gave her an apologetic look, but said nothing. "H-he had a gun in Grouse's face. Then he points his gun at me, so I shot."

"You shot first?" Kirche asked, he gaze going between Tremor's body and Siesta.

"If I hadn't-" Siesta's breath hitched as Alexander applied bandages tight to her thigh. She continued. "If I hadn't, he probably would have shot me right in the face."

Before either of the girls could respond, Alexander spoke up.

"Alright, that's good enough for now," he said, letting the satchel hang from his shoulder. "Let's get her back to the boat. Grouse, give me a hand?"

Grouse nodded, assisting Alexander as they lifted Siesta to her feet. Even with both the men supporting her weight, Siesta's leg throbbed in agony. She had a feeling that the relatively short walk back to the Skadovsk was going to be really long.

"I'll carry her things," Louise volunteered, even though the two men didn't have a clue what she was saying. It was easy enough to understand when Louise took Siesta's backpack from the floor and made it her own. She slung Siesta's Mosin onto her back as well, and felt considerably weighed down. How did Siesta even walk around with all of this?

"Hey, Louise."

Louise turned to Siesta, who was eyeing her with a pained smirk.

"What a day this has been, huh?"

* * *

 _A/N: And long overdue chapter is long overdue. Sorry about that. Some divergence from STALKER canon, since Grouse has now survived his encounter with Tremor instead of being killed. I know some of you know exactly why Tremor was going to shoot him, while some other might not have a clue. It'll come up in the next chapter anyway._

 _Speaking of the next chapter, it's going to be the last chapter in Humble Beginnings. Expect to see Monty-chan and some of our Halkeginian friends._

 _I'll keep this note short. Hope you're all having a nice day!_


	11. Humble Beginnings XI

_Humble Beginnings XI_

 _Zaton_

 _13:24_

Carrying a mug, Louise ascended the stairs up from the bar, doing her utmost not to let any of the steaming hot liquid slosh out. She had just discovered that Beard was capable of preparing tea, and she planned to take full advantage of the fact. One Louise had definitely missed from her previous life was a good cup of tea.

A stalker brushed past her on the stairs, causing a minor amount of liquid to spill. Louise gritted her teeth and hissed as the spilled liquid landed on her bare hand. She cast a quick glare at the offending stalker's back, who hadn't noticed what had happened in the slightest.

Fortunately for the Tristianian, she only had to climb a single flight of stairs to find the room Tremor had been using as his makeshift Doctor's office. The room, now void of any medical professional, had been temporarily taken over by the resident women of the Skadovsk while Siesta was recovering.

Turning right at the top of the stairs, the room she was searching for was directly across from Owl's trading post. A quick glance revealed that Owl was not the least bit interested in what she was doing. He seemed much more involved in a magazine he was flipping through. Louise quickly caught the sight of a pair of exposed breasts as the pages were turned.

 _How disgusting._

Stepping into Tremor's old office, Louise was immediately greeted.

"There you are! Where have you been? We missed you!" Siesta chirped with a slightly intoxicated edge to her voice. She sat upright on the lower level of a bunk bed with bandages tightly wrapped around her thigh, and a half-empty glass of vodka in her hand. She had shed her stalker garb, opting for a loose white t-shirt and an equally loose pair of shorts that allowed easy access to her injury.

Louise rolled her eyes, and instead of going through the effort of hefting the heavy door shut she simply drew a curtain across the doorway. It had been set up by Tremor, as he didn't have any tracked hospital curtains handy to provide any sort of privacy.

"What have you got there?" Kirche asked. She was seated across the room from Siesta, behind Tremor's desk on a wheeled chair. Her Academy uniform had been replaced with more appropriate stalker garb: a long coat similar to Louise's, although it was closer to brown in color, a dark pair of pants, and a pair of black boots that looked almost brand new

Louise placed her mug down on the desk and pulled a wooden chair across the room to be seated near her drink. "Tea," she answered simply, taking a tender sip.

"You got tea?" Siesta inquired curiously. "Where did you get tea? I used to freaking love tea."

"Beard makes it," Louise explained, taking another sip. "And it's brilliant, actually. You didn't know?"

Siesta shrugged. "I didn't really ask. It's a bar, after all. Who goes to a bar to ask for tea?"

"If you did that in a tavern in Germania, you'd be thrown into the street," Kirche chuckled, crossing her arms. Siesta chucked as well, while Louise remained silent.

"How did you manage to ask for it though?" Siesta asked, remembering Louise's current inability to speak any of the native languages in the area. "I don't imagine Beard understands Tristianian very well."

"Well I just did a lot of pointing."

Siesta laughed lightly, imagining Louise animatedly gesturing to Beard's cup of tea trying to convey that she wanted a cup of her own. On the subject of caffeinated beverages, she idly wondered how Louise would react to an energy drink. Siesta's first taste of the things was during a visit to Ganja's bar at Freedom's old base in the Dark Valley. She had enjoyed the taste so much that she'd had two in one sitting. Wolf had sincerely regretted not keeping a closer eye on her as she had been practically bouncing off the walls afterward.

She wondered what Wolf was up to now, or if he were even still alive. Siesta had asked Petruha about him when she had first found the stalker hanging around the Skadovsk, but like most, he had no idea of Wolf's whereabouts.

Siesta groaned, stretching her arms up behind her head before unceremoniously flopping down. A spike of pain shot through her wounded thigh as she jostled on the mattress, but her current state of inebriation dulled it pleasantly. "I'm so bored. I hate being stuck in a bed, it sucks," she groused.

Louise scoffed loudly. "You get a vacation from the Zone and you're complaining?"

"Well I wouldn't call it a vacation," Siesta frowned. "I mean, I did get shot. I just hate doing nothing."

"Well you're healing, and that's something, isn't it?" Kirche offered, her chair creaking as she leaned backwards. "If I were even halfway decent at healing magic then I'd try my best to help you along."

Siesta was silent for a moment, apparently in thought. "Aren't only certain kinds of mages good at that?"

Louise nodded. "Yes. Water mages."

"And I'm a fire mage," Kirche added.

"So basically you're the exact opposite?" Siesta asked.

"Well," Kirche cocked her head in a moment of thought. "I suppose you could put it that way."

Siesta nodded in understanding. It seemed she wouldn't be getting any shortcuts in her recovery.

"Your familiar, Kirche," Louise asked, changing the subject a little. "I recall you summoned a fire salamander, didn't you? What's happened to it?"

Kirche sighed unhappily. "I'd imagine Flame is somewhere in Tristain. That's my best guess."

Siesta didn't say anything, but she gave Kirche a funny look. She had given the name Flame to a fire salamander? She didn't know much about fire salamanders, but that name didn't sound very creative.

"I'd also like to begin looking for a way back," Kirche continued. "But, well..."

"You have no idea where to begin?" Louise offered, drawing a tired nod from the Germanian. "I've been there already."

Siesta let out a bitter laugh. "Yeah, I've been there for the last four years."

Louise and Kirche both stared at Siesta in silence for a moment, before the former decided to speak first. "You've been here for four years?"

The expression crossing Siesta's face let on that she hadn't particularly meant to divulge that fact. Nevertheless, she sighed and nodded. "Yeah. Four years, give or take."

Kirche shuddered. "I can't imagine doing this for four weeks, let alone years. How old are you?"

Siesta huffed. "Don't you know that you shouldn't ask a woman her age?"

"Yes, but I'm also a woman so it doesn't matter," Kirche pointed out.

After a moment's hesitation, Siesta responded. "I'm twenty-one."

Louise was slightly surprised, having not expected Siesta to be that old at all, but she remained quiet as she sipped her tea. Kirche, on the other hand, roared with laughter. "You're old!"

"Fuck you!" Siesta shot up, glaring daggers. "I'm only twenty-one! How the fuck is that old?"

"If you're actually twenty-one," Louise remarked dryly over Kirche's fit of giggles. "Then perhaps you should act like it."

Giving Louise a quick sneer, Siesta produced a semi-flattened pack of cigarettes from seemingly nowhere and removed one. Louise didn't notice until it had already been lit to fill the room with a distinct odor.

Siesta noticed Louise's stare. "What?"

Louise narrowed her eyes. "When did you start doing that?"

"Well I'm twenty-one, and you said to act like it! Old people smoke all the time."

"That is not what I meant, and you know it," Louise noticed as her mug of tea was now less than half full. She sighed. Her small comfort wasn't lasting her nearly long enough.

"I've been doing this for a while though," Siesta began, offering up her true explanation. "Just only when I'm really stressed out or upset."

Kirche smirked. "What? Did calling you old upset you that much?"

Siesta began her response by raising a single finger on her right hand. "I got shot. Give me a break, will you? It seriously hurts, even if I'm a bit drunk."

"Speaking of that," Louise spoke up, seeing an opportunity to project her thoughts into speech. "I'm still wondering why Tremor did that. I don't see why he'd feel the need to put a gun in Grouse's face. Did something happen between them, I wonder?"

"Oh-oh-oh-oh," Siesta rattled off, flicking cigarette ashes into an empty can of sardines set atop an end table. "I honestly forgot to tell you. While you two were out this morning, Grouse came by." She smirked. "I guess the nosy bastard just can't take a break, he said he was looking into what Tremor had been doing. Apparently he found some pretty disturbing stuff."

Slightly intrigued, Louise sipped at her tea yet again before responding. "Is that so?"

"Yeah," Siesta nodded. "You know in that cabin by the dock cranes? Where I was shot, right? Grouse tore up the place looking for any kind of clue as to what Tremor's problem was. There were bodies buried underneath the floorboards."

Louise's tea subsequently went down the wrong way. As she coughed and attempted to clear her airway, Kirche asked the obvious question for her. "W-why? Why would he? How could he?"

Siesta continued. "They all had their blood drained, so Grouse thinks Tremor might have been drinking it and-"

"D-d-drinking it?" Louise sputtered, recovering her ability to speak properly. "Like a vampire?"

Siesta glared at the interruption, and then subsequently shrugged. "Yeah, expect that he wasn't actually a vampire. Anyway, Grouse went through his things and he thinks that he was killing off people and trying to make it look like bloodsuckers were doing it so he could feed an addiction, or some shit like that."

"That's..." Kirche shuddered. "That's just very... odd."

"Odd?" Siesta snorted, taking a drag off her cigarette. "I guess 'odd' could work. I was thinking more along the lines of 'really fucked up', but 'odd' works too."

Louise stared down into her mug, no longer wanting to finish off her tea. "So, Tremor was going to kill Grouse because he was getting too close to the truth?"

"Yep," Siesta said, nodding an affirmative. "That guy is so lucky I decided to tag along. Aren't I a nice person?"

Louise scoffed. "The nicest."

"So if you think about it," Siesta continued. "That lair of bloodsuckers might not have even been a big problem at all, since most of the missing stalkers were actually killed by Tremor."

Louise's face dropped as she groaned in disbelief. "So everything we went through to get rid of the lair was pointless?"

"Well, no. It's probably good that we got rid of it anyway. Nobody really likes bloodsuckers."

Heaving a sigh, Louise quickly gulped down the remainder of her tea and looked to Kirche. "I suppose you should get some more target practice in. You're atrocious with a gun."

Kirche clicked her tongue in annoyance as she stood. "And I'm sure you were so much better your first time. You just have more experience than I do."

Louise stood as well. "I haven't even been here that long, Kirche."

Siesta snorted. "How accurate is she?" She asked to Louise.

"Well, if her target is about the size of a barn door, then she can hit it just fine," Louise answered dryly.

"Hey!" Kirche protested.

Siesta laughed. "Anyway, wait up. I've got a better idea."

"You have an idea that better than shooting things?" Louise spoke with mock surprise in her voice. "I have to hear this."

Siesta crushed the cigarette butt in the sardine can and flicked it towards Louise where it bounced uselessly off of her coat. "Language spell."

"Oh right," Louse looked to Kirche. "You need someone to provide a sample, right? Would Siesta do?"

Kirche winced, unsure. "I don't know. It might work, but since she's not that good at speaking it the spell could be mucked up."

"You need a sample? Like... so the spell knows what language or something?" Siesta asked.

Louise and Kirche both nodded in unison.

"I guess that makes sense," Siesta played at her chin. "Yeah, I'd rather not have something like that backfire on us and have like, our throats explode or something."

Kirche rolled her eyes. "It obviously wouldn't be that bad, it would just hurt. Well, it kind of hurts anyway, but it would just be worse."

"It hurts?" Siesta asked.

"Yes," Kirche nodded. "In the throat. It's worse if it's your first time." She then snorted to herself, innuendo filling her head.

Louise groaned. "That's lovely. I cannot wait."

Siesta looked to Louise. "You haven't had it done before?"

"It's not very popular," Louise pointed out. "Because of, you know, the hurting part. Obviously I know Tristainian because it's my native language, and I do know a fair bit of Albionese."

"Really?"

Louise nodded. "Tristain and Albion have always been close allies. Most Tristainian Nobles can speak both."

Siesta gestured towards the floor. "So how many of those people do you trust down there?"

Louise held up her hand, pretending to count off her fingers and mouth names of people she trusted. She quickly donned an expression of mock realization. "Oh, absolutely nobody. Imagine that?"

Kirche raised an eyebrow, returning her bottom to the chair. "Honestly? Not even Grouse or Alexander?"

"Not with something like this," Louise said seriously.

Siesta sighed, idly staring down at her bandages in thought. Louise was right. It was going to be hard to trust anybody with their secret. Siesta knew she was going to have to put some serious thought into this, and right now, they had plenty of time to think about how they would go about casting a spell like that.

Besides, it wasn't a huge deal at the moment, and it wasn't like Siesta was going anywhere anytime soon.

Eyeing the two girls, a smile broke across her face as she watched Louise and Kirche banter back and forth about the potential repercussions in telling Alexander and Grouse what they really were. Her life in the Zone had certainly taken an interesting turn.

She didn't feel so alone anymore.

* * *

 _The Cordon_

 _14:17_

"Anyway, he swears he saw him," Tolik was saying. "But I'm not sure if I believe it. Just seems too far-fetched to me."

"How is that far-fetched?" Drifter replied, staring through a pair of binoculars. "Clumsy might be an idiot, but he isn't blind."

Tolik let out a drawn-out 'hmm'. He turned to the only other person present. "What do you think of him, Monty?"

Montmorency snorted in annoyance. The use of that nickname had plagued her for the last week, and it didn't seem like anybody would be letting up. Nobody ever called her Montmorency. She leaned her head back onto the bark of the tree she was sitting against, unsure of how to respond to Tolik.

The three of them sat on the crest of a hill underneath the shade of a large birch tree. The car park was off in the distance, within range of binoculars, but also far enough away for them to be out of the range of the snork's noses. Most snorks seemed to keep within the buildings and inside any potential basements underneath, but they also made regular excursions to feed.

Thus far, the snorks and the stalkers had kept their distance from each other. Occasionally, one or two might wander near Fanatic's posted watch to meet a swift demise. Similarly, from the sparse gunshots rolling through the trees, they also seemed to be stumbling into the military's checkpoint at the train bridge.

Montmorency decided to respond to Tolik after a moment, shifting the Simonov carbine which lay against her shoulder. "Clumsy? He is, without a doubt, the most uncoordinated human being I have ever encountered."

Drifter lowered his binoculars. "Well, that sure goes without saying."

"He also continues to attempt to flirt with me, it's horrendous. I'm going to physically harm him if he doesn't stop."

Tolik laughed, mostly at Montmorency's manner of speaking. Drifter joined him in a few chuckles as well. Glancing over his shoulder, Tolik found a figure advancing on the group from behind. "Ah, Awl's back," he announced.

"Awesome," Drifter began, rising to his feet with a grunt. "Took him long enough."

Montmorency decided to rise as well, using her rifle to ease the process. She had gotten used to the idea of wearing pants, and had actually grown to enjoy them. She could now sit or sprawl in any position without worry of exposure. She had also resorted to tying her hair up in a ponytail with a red ribbon that had been present in her previous hairstyle, being that styling her hair into ringlets was no longer a viable option.

In her solid opinion, she looked terrible, but at the same time Montmorency also no longer cared. She'd been through too much in the past week for her appearance to bother her anymore.

Cradling her SKS, Montmorency moved next to Tolik just as Awl reached them.

"It's a little late," Awl spoke up first as he approached the group, paper bags hanging from both hands. "But, uh... lunch time I guess?"

Drifter snorted. "You get lost on the way?"

Awl clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Screw you. Next time somebody has to run back to the village, you're the one doing it."

"What did you bring?" Tolik asked, his stomach eager to be filled.

"Bread, leftover flesh, some sodas," Awl listed. "Pretty much all I could get."

Montmorency shuddered, inadvertently picturing a flesh in her mind. She mentally reminded herself to think of it as pork, it was close enough anyway. Accepting her share of food, she sat with her back against the tree once again. Awl and Tolik sat next to each other engaging in light conversation, while Drifter ate and stared through his binoculars with most of his attention focused on the car park.

She had tuned out most of the men's conversation, idly taking a swig from her can of soda while she looked to the sky through the canopy of leaves above her.

"...And then she had that look on her face, you know the one? That fucking shit-eating grin," Tolik finished, his voice laced with laughter.

 _She?_

Montmorency wondered who the men were talking about. If she had paid full attention to their conversation she probably would have known already, but it wasn't her fault that Awl and Tolik had a habit of conversing about things that she didn't care for. Nevertheless, as far as Montmorency knew she was the only female around. They definitely weren't talking about her, as she couldn't ever recall wearing a 'shit-eating grin.' Whatever that was.

"Yeah," Awl chuckled, his mouth full. "She was something else, that's for sure."

"Who are you talking about?" Montmorency asked curiously, finishing off the soda.

"Siesta," Awl replied, as if it should have been obvious.

Montmorency motioned for him to explain more. Siesta was a familiar name, but she had no idea who it belonged to. "Who is that? I've heard that name around the village a few times now, but I've yet to meet this person."

Drifter shrugged, jumping into the conversation. "Siesta was just a girl like you."

"Like me? How?"

"She came here the same way you did," Drifter continued, immediately piquing Montmorency's curiosity. "But really, the only person who claimed to have seen it happen was Sidorovich, so nobody really believed it at the time. She used to be around the village a lot, pulling odd jobs and collecting artifacts. You know, normal stalker stuff."

"How long was she around anyway?" Tolik interjected. "Was she here when you showed up?"

"Yeah," Drifter nodded. "Other than that I don't know much. I could never really get a straight answer out of the older guys. I think she might have even been around when Wolf was a rookie."

Awl huffed. "Yeah right, who told you that?"

"Just rumors, Awl."

After a moment's contemplation, Montmorency scoffed distastefully. "So is that why Sidorovich has a maid's outfit in his bunker?"

Tolik and Awl promptly burst into laughter, with the latter speaking up. "Sidorovich has a fucking maid outfit in his bunker? Shit! I wonder what he does with it!"

Montmorency rolled her eyes. She knew well enough that Sidorovich didn't do anything with that maid outfit; the dust it had collected was proof enough. She decided to stay quiet about it, instead of ruining Awl and Tolik's fun.

"Yeah," Drifter said, chuckling. "That's where that came from I guess. Can you imagine her dressing up in that and walking around the Zone? I'd pay to see that."

Awl and Tolik laughed in agreement.

"Where is she now?" Montmorency asked, shifting her SKS to lie across her lap.

"Who knows?" Drifter answered. "One day she just left and never came back."

Montmorency screwed up her face. "What? Without even saying anything?"

Tolik spoke up. "Why would she do that? She was probably going to come back, but just didn't make it. Shit happens."

"Oh... right," Montmorency sighed.

"Even if she had decided to go wandering off to a different part of the Zone," Drifter added in, lowering his binoculars to glance at Montmorency. "It really doesn't surprise me that she wouldn't say anything to anybody. That's just how she was."

Montmorency nodded slowly, in thought. The Zone changed people, she knew that. It had already changed her. She knew right from the moment she had raised her weapon on another person that her life was never going to be the same again. Therefore, it was reasonable to assume that the Zone had changed this Siesta person from whoever she had been, to somebody that was rather aloof and distant.

She had put her magic on the sidelines, for now. She always carried her wand inside her coat, but it remained untouched most of the time. Most everybody already knew of her strange arrival, and she didn't want any more attention on herself, it would be unbearable. She had decided that she'd only use magic as a last resort, or in an emergency. She knew that if any of the three men with her now were severely injured, the wand would come out without hesitation. As a line-class water mage she wasn't the best healer, but she was proficient enough to keep somebody alive.

The majority of Montmorency's time spent after leaving Sidorovich's bunker had been around Drifter, Awl, and Tolik. Thus far, they seemed to be decent men who helped her along the best they could. Sticking around any of the three men, she hadn't gotten any trouble around the village aside from a few more brazen stalkers.

Montmorency's mind was still on the girl Drifter had mentioned, Siesta. She exhaled deeply, glad to finally know something she had been wondering all along.

It wasn't just her. There were others, she knew it.

* * *

The fire crackled, a shifting piece of wood sending a river of sparks sailing upward. The fire was small, barely creating any warmth on the cool spring evening, but it had to be that way. Anything larger would no doubt attract attention. Soon, the sun would be below the horizon and darkness would wash over the land.

Tabitha drew her knees closer to her chest in a vain attempt to warm herself. She had considered using her familiar for warmth, but the dragon she had summoned had grown hungry, and with her permission had flown off to eat it's fill.

There was only one person sitting with her near the fire, a first year student at the Academy known as Katie. Tabitha hadn't previously known the brunette. She was a low ranking Noble, and only wanted to make it into the capitol to return to her family. If things were normal, Katie could have easily caught one of the many scheduled carriages that traveled the country, but things were most certainly not normal. The carriages hadn't been running for a while.

The teaching staff of the Academy had insisted the students remain at the Academy during these troubling times, for their own protection of course. When Tabitha had awoken that morning to see a massive portion of the Academy's outer wall eroded away, she made her decision to leave and make her way home to Gallia. If something could simply eat away a magically reinforced stone wall, then who knew what could happen next?

Tabitha had left with a group that morning, and progress had been slow going. The roads were mysteriously blocked, and finding alternate routes was becoming troublesome. What was normally a day's walk would now become at least two, she was sure. By herself, Tabitha could have just flown on her familiar, but she felt abandoning her group wasn't an option, and there were too many of them for Sylphid to carry along with their things.

The others had left to scout the area, attempting to find a way through the angry shimmering that plagued the roads so they would have an idea of where to go the next morning. This left only herself and Katie sitting by the fire in the small clearing. Neither of the girls seemed inclined to engage in idle conversation. Tabitha wasn't much of a conversationalist on a good day, and Katie seemed rather troubled with her knees up against her chest and her head buried in her arms.

It was only a rustling in the brush nearby, but Tabitha's stomach immediately told her something was amiss. Her hands tightened around the staff propped against her shoulder. Katie's head slowly rose from her arms, her eyes puffy and bloodshot. She turned to the blue-haired girl.

"Did... did you hear that just now?" The brunette croaked out.

Tabitha didn't respond. She rose to her feet instead, staff in hand. She saw a pair of glowing eyes within the trees, which quickly darted away to cause more rustling through the leaves.

"I-I know I heard that!" Katie said fearfully, scrambling to her feet. She moved closer to the silent mage.

"Trouble," Tabitha announced simply, readying her staff. Katie clumsily brandished her wand, moving to stand behind the blue-haired girl. Tabitha didn't know the girl well, but it was easy enough to assume she wasn't much of a fighter.

A white pair of lambent eyes bounced out from the treeline, coming to a halt in the clearing. Oddly, there wasn't a body to go along with the pair of eyes, only a horrendous looking shadow on the grass.

Wide-eyed, Katie stared at the happening from over Tabitha's head. "Wh-what is that? A g-ghost?"

In an instant after the words had left Katie's mouth, the unknown creature bounded forward and melted into existence at the same time. The bloodsucker released an ear-grating screech, the four tentacles surrounding its gaping maw spreading wide.

As Katie screamed in absolute horror, Tabitha chanted quickly and almost silently, swinging her staff in a horizontal arc. A blade of condensed air tore through the creature's midsection, cleaving it in two and spilling blood and innards onto the grass.

"O-oh God! What is that? What is that!?" Katie cried, finding herself unable to take her eyes off the bisected humanoid body on the ground. Looking at the tentacles surrounding the creature's mouth, she really didn't want to know what would happen if it got a hold on somebody.

Tabitha couldn't give her an answer. She had never seen anything like this creature in her life, but it served to support the rumors that had been floating around recently. This was a strange and ugly creature if she had ever seen one. The quiet blue-haired girl tensed, her grip on her staff tightening as more rustling came from around them. She knew this wasn't over.

"More," Tabitha stated simply.

"W-what?" Katie stammered. Fresh tears formed in her eyes. "How do you-"

She didn't get a chance to finish as another bloodsucker charged forth from their side, screeching and becoming visible frighteningly close. Katie could only scream, but Tabitha was quick with her staff, sending half a dozen razor sharp icicles speeding through the creature's body. The bloodsucker tripped over itself, landing in a lifeless heap.

It took less than a moment for another creature to appear, weaving around the fire towards Katie with claws brandished. Noticing that Tabitha was occupied with two more bloodsuckers that were charging her from the front, Katie knew she had to act or else she'd be in for a very unpleasant experience. She shakily raised her wand, hastily conjuring a spell that saw a melon-sized ball of water forming at the end of her wand and rocketing towards the advancing bloodsucker. The conjured water ball collided directly with the creature's face, the impact effectively clotheslining the mutant and sending it reeling to the ground.

While this would have caused a person a lot of pain and grief, the bloodsucker was merely angered by the action. It sprung to a sitting position, lambent eyes glaring.

At the same time, Tabitha had swiftly dispatched the two advancing bloodsucker's with swift decapitations each. She turned, seeing the bloodsucker Katie had knocked over scrambling to its feet. A swift incantation sent a single icicle sailing cleanly through the mutant's skull.

Her wand still raised, Katie stood almost in a daze trying to comprehend what had just happened. She was only jolted out of her thoughts when something heavy slammed into the ground nearby. She quickly turned to find Tabitha's familiar sitting nearby, having sensed its master was in danger it had returned as quickly as possible, only arriving a hair too late to offer any assistance.

Tabitha approached Sylphid and scratched the blue-scaled beast's nose while it let out a worried bleat. "I am fine," she reassured the creature. Katie breathed a ragged sigh of relief, feeling much safer with the large reptilian around.

"Tabitha! Katie!"

Katie whirled at the sound of the approaching voice, while Tabitha merely turned her head. Three male Academy students came running into the clearing through the narrow trail that connected it to the main road, worry evident on all of their faces.

The first to speak was a blonde wearing a frilly white shirt instead of the Academy's norm, Guiche. He immediately noticed the deceased mutants, but let out a sigh of relief nevertheless. "Oh thank the Founder you're both alright. We heard the screams."

"More of these things?" Another student, Gimli, approached the bloodsucker Tabitha had shot through the head with an icicle, running a hand through his dull green hair as he bumped it with his foot. "God, they're bloody disgusting."

"More?" Tabitha asked suspiciously.

The third male to follow Guiche into the clearing, Malicorne, nodded hesitantly. He was a blonde, like Guiche, but was much more portly in build. He looked winded from running. "W-we ran into them on the road..."

"Or maybe they ran into us, who knows?" Gimli grunted in distaste. "I guess the rumors weren't just rumors after all..."

"Perhaps," Guiche sighed, he eyed Katie and Tabitha once again. "So you're both okay? Neither of you were hurt?" Tabitha only nodded, while Katie remained silent with a slight shakiness to her posture. "Katie?"

The girl in question jumped, eyeing Guiche hesitantly. "I... yes, I-I-I mean no... no I'm not hurt."

Guiche nodded, accepting the girl's words. He raised his wand, the ground underneath the dead bloodsuckers swallowing the bodies whole to bar them from view.

Gimli shrugged at Guiche's actions as he moved to sit near the fire. "Better than having to stare at them."

"We shouldn't have left the Academy," Malicorne lamented in a whining tone as he sat near the fire as well. "Honestly, this is ridiculous. It would be safer there!"

Instead of rejoining the fire, Tabitha sat and leaned against the side of her familiar who in turn draped its tail over her lap. Sylphid offered plenty of warmth, much more than the anemic fire.

"You can go back, if you want," Gimli huffed, shrugging. "You saw what happened to the wall, how can that be safe? The capitol is our best bet, I think."

"And what if it's the same there?" Malicorne shot back. "What happens then?"

"For now, let's just pray that isn't the case," Guiche interjected, sitting near the fire as well. He watched as Katie hesitantly returned to the burning wood, situating herself in the large space left between Malicorne and Gimli. Guiche looked over his shoulder to Tabitha, who was merely staring into the fire. "We tried our best to find a way through, and I think we've got a good one. It's a little rough going, though." Guiche motioned towards his feet, highlighting the fact that his legs were wet nearly to his knees and caked in mud. Malicorne and Gimli were the same way.

Tabitha nodded in acknowledgment. As long as they had a direction in mind and any accidents could be avoided, she was satisfied. The hazes and shimmering that had suddenly begun plaguing the lands offered a plethora of reactions to being interacted with: jets of flames, clouds of scalding steam, sudden and powerful gusts of winds, and most notably, explosions.

None of them wanted to see what would happen if they were to accidentally wander into one.

Katie broke the silence with a muffled sob, her knees against her chest and her head in her arms once again.

"Hey," Gimli began, his expression softening at the sight of the distraught girl. "Are you...?"

"I-I-I can't..." another sob."W-why is this happening?"

Gimli sighed, scooting closer to Katie and placing an arm around her shoulders, which she graciously leaned in to. "I wish I knew."

The next few moments passed in silence, until the wail of an unimaginable creature drifted through the trees from far off.

Malicorne shuddered. "What is happening to our country?"

Gimli spoke in a bitter voice. "Divine punishment, maybe?"

"Divine punishment?" Guiche repeated, raising an eyebrow. "What makes you consider that?"

"Yeah, what could have been done to bring that about?" Malicorne asked, drawing his cloak around himself.

Gimli shrugged as Katie brought her head up from her arms. "Who knows?"

Another silence passed over them as the fire got even lower and the Halkeginian moons became more prominent in the sky. Malicorne got to work at setting out a bedroll.

"Valliére has been on my mind, as of late," Guiche remarked out of nowhere, adding a small bundle of wood to the fire.

"The Zero?" Gimli asked, a little surprised. He scoffed. "She's definitely missing out."

"I just think it's odd that all of this started after the Springtime Familiar Summoning."

"What does that have to do with her?" Gimli raised an eyebrow. "She blew herself up. Hey, maybe her angry sprit is punishing us all from beyond the grave."

"That's ridiculous, Gimli," Malicorne commented. Having finished setting out his bedroll, he slipped into the blankets and situated himself on his side facing away from the group.

After a moment's thought, Gimli spoke again. "Maybe... but is it though?"

"It is," Malicorne commented again. From the sound of his voice, it seemed Gimli might have actually had some faith in his own theory.

"Yes, yes. You're right. But is it though?"

Guiche gave Gimli a weird look. "Louise de la Valliére's spirit is not haunting the lands of Tristain, that's just impossible. She died, and that's that. I merely thought it was odd that her untimely death coincided with all the strange things that have begun happening. "

Gimli sighed, standing up from the fire to leave Katie sitting alone. He stretched his back and his arms and made his way towards their mountain of gear to extract his bedroll. It had all been organized at one point, but the moment Tabitha's familiar had landed in the clearing it eagerly shrugged everything off into a messy pile.

The green-haired boy cast a glance at Guiche once again. The blonde had not been himself since Montmorency had up and vanished, his normally laid back and flirtatious attitude had taken a back seat. It was to be expected, since he and Montmorency had been in a romantic relationship.

"Not dead," Tabitha suddenly spoke up, causing Gimli to freeze in surprise. All eyes settled on the blue-haired girl, even Malicorne rolled over to eye her.

Gimli was the first to speak. "Are you talking about the Zero? ...Did you not see what happened to her?"

Tabitha nodded. "Gone. Like the others."

Guiche gave the blue-haired girl a suspicious look. "What are you saying? That she's just disappeared like all of those other people?"

Tabitha nodded again, but Guiche didn't seem inclined to believe her. The girl registered his look of disbelief, and to Guiche's surprise, she spoke again, using the most words he'd ever heard her use in one sitting.

"Saw Kirche disappear while flying Sylphid at night, she was walking along the Academy wall. Blinked, and she was gone."

"R-really?" Katie asked, speaking up for the first time in a while. Tabitha only nodded yet again.

"But..." Guiche began, looking unsure. "There's no way you can know they're alive for sure, especially when you think about what happened to Valliére."

Tabitha eyed him evenly. "I know. I just hope."

Guiche looked away, returning his attention to the fire. Hope? Tabitha didn't particularly strike him as the type who held hope for such things, but Kirche and Montmorency had literally been her only friends, so it really didn't come as a big surprise, but why would she care if Valliére were alive or not?

The blonde sighed, his thoughts going back to the subject of Louise de la Valliére. It's not like he had been her friend, in fact, he was sure he'd never spoken more than two words to her. It was only one thing keeping her on his mind, and he didn't dare say it to anyone else, even if he had his suspicions that others had the same thoughts.

When Louise attempted to summon a familiar, something happened. Not just the usual blow-up-in-her-face something, but something else. What happened specifically, he had no idea. Maybe she'd broken the rules that governed reality, maybe she'd angered the Founder to an extreme degree, maybe she was dead and her angry spirit was exacting it's vengeance on the living like Gimli had said, or maybe her attempted summoning had just opened up a gateway straight into hell.

At this point, it didn't really matter to him what exactly had happened, he just had the worst feeling in his stomach that Louise had inadvertently done something horrible.

He only prayed that he was wrong.

 _End of Humble Beginnings_

* * *

 _A/N: Humble Beginnings comes to a close. While it wasn't everything I wanted to be, I'm fairly satisfied with it. I'm going to_

 _be getting right into the next part of the story, working out the finer details of the arc before I begin posting chapters._

 _This first act, Humble Beginnings, is exactly that. The next act will be much longer and while the primary focus of this story is on Louise and Siesta, there will be a large focus on other groups of characters such as Montmorency and the other Cordon stalkers, Guiche and his group, and Major Alexander Degtyarev on his own weird adventure._

 _Like I said, there are still some things to work out and holes to fill in, so I'll keep this short._

 _Actually, since this chapter was so short, I'll do something else._

 _You're free to not read this, and if you don't want anything at all spoiled for the next act, then don't read it. I've written a bunch of short scenes like this one, which I incorporate into the story as I see fit. Just so you know, this little situation is subject to any changes that I see fit as the story progresses, so when we come across it during the actual story it may or may not bit a little different._

 _But anyway, a little preview of things to come:_

* * *

Montmorency was jostled in her seat once again as the UAZ rumbled straight over another set of potholes. She let out an annoyed groan, casting the driver a narrow glare.

"You could just go around them, you know. It's not like there's other traffic to worry about."

The driver cast the blond an equally narrow glare before returning her attention to the road. "They snuck up on me, it's dark," she glowered, roughly shifting the transmission into a higher gear. "I slowed down a bit, at least."

"Louise, if a wheel falls off this thing again I am not getting involved."

Louise rolled her eyes at the comment. "It won't. We fixed that, remember?"

Montmorency huffed, adjusting her rifle which leaned against the interior of her door. "As capable as Siesta is, I don't think she's a qualified mechanic."

"No, but Tolik used to be, and her helped her," Louise pointed out, lifting her hand from the gear shift to reach for the climate controls. "I need more heat."

"Then put the window up all the way!"

"I broke that. It's just stuck there," Louise advised the blonde, gesturing to the driver's side window which had been a few inches ajar since they had departed from the village. "Don't you remember me telling you that?"

"No, I don't remember," Montmorency said slowly, giving Louise a weird look. "You didn't tell me that."

"Oh?" Louise responded, frowning. "Well I told somebody. I'm sure you were there."

"Maybe I just wasn't listening to you."

Louise clicked her tongue in annoyance, tearing her eyes from the road to glare at Montmorency. "Jeez, what's crawled up your ass all of a sudden? Ever since we left Rostok you've had this face on you like somebody just shot your puppy and-"

The pinkette was suddenly and quite loudly interrupted when Montmorency pointed straight ahead and began screaming. "OHMYGODLOUISEWATCHOUT!"

Louise's head snapped back to the road, but it was much too late for her to do anything. She caught a quick glance of a dark colored four-legged animal standing right in the UAZ's path, much like a deer caught in a car's headlights. The animal tried to bolt at the last second, but its rear half received a solid forty-five mile-an-hour smack that sent it spiraling to the side of the road. Louise's feet simultaneously found the clutch and brake pedals only milliseconds after the impact, bringing the UAZ to a scuttling halt on the dirty pavement.

As the vehicle still rocked on its suspension, Louise and Montmorency shared a wide-eyed glance before the pinkette tore the transmission out of gear and wrenched upward on the parking break. One hand found the door's handle, while the other wrapped around the forend of her Kalashnikov.

"Wait- Louise!" Montmorency called as the driver left the vehicle entirely, leaving the door wide open. "Where are you going! Get back in!"

Holding her rifle ready, Louise glanced back inside the UAZ's cabin at the fretting blonde. "What in the Zone did I just hit? Did you see it?"

"Well, don't you see it out there!? You had to have killed the thing!"

Louise shook her head, taking steps backward towards the front of the vehicle. "No, the damn thing is gone!"

"What!?"

"It's gone!" Louise repeated, inspecting the front-end of the vehicle. She let out a cry of dismay. "Oh hell, it's broken one of the headlights, and something's leaking! What was that thing made of, bricks?"

"Louise! Get. Back. In!"

"What is your problem?" Louise demanded, reluctantly returning to the driver's seat while praying that there was no lasting damage to the vehicle. "Ugh, Siesta is honestly going to kill me for this!"

"Th-that thing, Louise!" Montmorency cried, clutching her rifle tight. "God, the heads! It had two heads!"

Louise's gaze snapped to the blonde, her eyes wide and mouth slightly agape as she paused in closing the door. "You... two heads, you say? You saw two heads?"

"Y-yes, like a second before you hit it," Montmorency said, studying Louise's expression. "What's with that face? I'm already shaken up enough. You don't need to make it worse!"

Slamming the door closed, Louise hastily deactivated the parking break and threw the UAZ into first gear, dumping the clutch and letting the tires squeal. Montmorency continued to stare at the pinkette as she jerked the vehicle into second gear.

"Why are you so freaked out?" Montmorency asked fearfully, casting a glance over her shoulder and out the rear window. Only pitch blackness met her eyes. "Do even you know what that was?"

"That was a chimera."

Montmorency's eyes instantly bugged out of her head. "A w-what!? I've only heard of those, but..."

"But what?" Louise asked in a forced voice, heaving the UAZ into its fourth and final gear. "They're seriously just hell on four legs. I don't even know which is worse, those things or a pseudogiant."

The blonde passenger shot Louise a look of disbelief. "How can something be worse than a pseudogiant?"

"You know when a pseudogiant is coming, chimeras like to stalk their prey and sneak up on you. When we came across one in Zaton we didn't even know what was happening until it was right on top of us."

Montmorency let out a sigh, casting another fearful glance out the back window only to see blackness yet again. "What are we going to do if it comes after us? That is, if it can even still walk at this point."

Louise glanced at her passenger. This time she was sure to return her eyes to the road as soon as possible, the turn she was supposed to take was coming up soon. She scratched at the scars on her face. "Let's just get out of the Darkscape, first. Then we explain to Siesta what happened to the car, and then hopefully she decides to let us live."

Montmorency rolled her eyes. "You're being so dramatic."

"I'm not. I don't think you understand how much Siesta loves this old pile of junk."


	12. The Life of a Stalker I

_The Life of a Stalker I_

 _Zaton_

 _15:43_

Louise de la Valliére ran.

Weaving through the trees and brush, she moved as fast as her legs could carry her, showing no sign of stopping even as her breathing turned ragged and heavy. Her gloved hands clutched her weapon tight as she forced her protesting legs to move faster.

She cast a wary glance over her shoulder, finding that only the trees greeted her vision. Louise pushed onward, her pace involuntarily slowing as her muscles began to reach their limit. Through the gaps in the trees, she could pick out a small collection of wooden buildings. If she could breathe a sigh of relief right now, she would. At least she wasn't lost.

Bursting through the treeline, Louise's run slowed further to a sloppy jog. She knew the small run-down village, having passed it many times on her way to other parts of Zaton. The village itself was comprised of only about a dozen ramshackle houses, and a small outdoor theater.

Wheezing, Louise came to a walk as she reached the theater. She weakly clambered onto the stage, backed herself into a corner, and unceremoniously let herself fall back onto her bottom.

Seeking ventilation, Louise pulled down the cloth covering the lower half of her face and peeled her hood back, sighing happily as a slight breeze found its way through her hair. She rested her head against the theater's wooden wall as she continued to catch her breath, her brow furrowing as her hand unconsciously sprung up to play with the end of her ponytail. Being that her hair would normally reach all the way down to her bottom, tying it up still created quite a long ponytail, which would occasionally get in the way, or in a more specific example, get caught in the Skadovsk's door and create quite a scene, so Louise had opted to shorten her hair to a much more manageable length.

After a few moments of rest, Louise's breathing returned to its normal state. She stared up through a hole in the theater's slanted roof, gazing out at the overcast sky. If it was going to rain, she hoped that it would at least hold off until they made it back to the Skadovsk.

Louise frowned. 'They' would imply that there was somebody with her, but as of right now she was completely alone and had been for far longer than she would have liked.

"Where is she?" Louise grumbled quietly to herself, tapping the back of her head against the wall a few times. She knew she was in the right place. This is where they usually arranged to meet in the event of separation. It was close enough to the Skadovsk, and was a known landmark.

Unless there was another run-down village with a stupid looking outdoor theater somewhere in Zaton, then Louise felt she shouldn't have been waiting this long. Worry began to bubble up in her stomach.

Just as she contemplated leaving and searching for her lost companion, she heard hurried footsteps approaching fast. Louise quickly rose to a crouched position, shouldering her AKS-74U in the event that the approaching footsteps were not friendly ones. She moved the selector lever off of safe and all the way down to semi-automatic, tightening her finger on the trigger ever so slightly.

Kirche von Zerbst soon stumbled into view, looking ragged and out of breath. Her lengthy red hair was messier than usual, and looked quite a bit dirtier than it should have. As she climbed onto the stage, Louise noticed that her coat and pants had a nice layer of mud on them.

Louise lowered her Kalashnikov, breathing a sigh of relief. "Jeez Kirche, you could have announced yourself. I nearly shot you in the face!"

Kirche let out a tired chuckle, dropping down to her bottom in the middle of the stage. She laid Siesta's AKM down, flopping onto her back with her arms out to her sides. "That would have been unpleasant."

The pinkette shook her head, rising to her feet and standing over the Germanian. "What happened to you? You look horrible."

The redhead huffed playfully with a tired edge to her voice, massaging her forehead with a hand. "I thought we were done badmouthing each other."

Rolling her eyes, Louise kneeled down next to the other girl. "Honestly though, you look like you lost a fight with a swamp."

"You could say that," Kirche sighed, rising to a sitting position.

"Do you still have all of those artifacts at least? If not, then all of this trouble would have been for nothing."

Kirche patted a satchel that hung from her shoulder. "I still have them," she reassured.

Thoroughly relieved, Louise nodded. "So what happened?"

"I got turned around in the woods," Kirche groaned, trying to brush the drying mud off her coat. "I ended up running all the way to the river bed, and then I tripped and fell in."

Louise scoffed and rolled her eyes at the Germanian's misfortune.

"I found the road after," Kirche continued. "Then I ran all the way back here."

"Well, it didn't turn out that badly then," Louise commented, gesturing to Kirche's legs. "You could have gotten worse than some muddy trousers."

"A-Actually, that's not all," Kirche sighed, frowning. "I had a bit of a... um, an accident."

The pinkette gave Kirche a questioning look. "What do you mean?"

Reaching into her coat, Kirche pulled her wand out from one of the inside pockets, although it looked much shorter than it should have. In fact, it was only half of her wand. She pulled out the other half, holding them together with a weak smile.

"Oh my God," Louise breathed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Seriously? How did that happen?"

"When I tripped into the river bed, I fell on it."

Louise stood. "That's just brilliant, Kirche," she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

Kirche clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Like I said, it was an accident! Those happen."

A deep rumbling groan drifted through the air, cutting off anything Louise had been about to say. Louise and Kirche both frowned deeply as a distant clap of thunder reached their ears.

"Emission," Kirche groaned, receiving a nod from her pink-haired companion.

"Come on," Louise urged, moving to the edge of the stage. "We can beat it back to the Skadovsk if we run. We may as well tell Beard about the zombies too."

The zombies had been the entire reason Louise and Kirche had both been running blindly through the trees. In wake of the destruction of the bloodsucker lair, the population of zombies had drastically risen in Zaton. Unbeknownst to any of the stalkers, the bloodsuckers had almost been performing a necessary service in the area in using the zombies as their main food source.

Thus far, the zombies hadn't wandered too close to the Skadovsk, but during their artifact gathering Louise and Kirche had stumbled into a sizeable hoard that was frighteningly close. The number of armed zombies was simply daunting, and after inadvertently alerting a few stragglers to their presence they had opted to simply flee through the woods as the bullets began flying.

The rest of the stalkers had to be warned that the mindless shufflers were getting closer.

Louise and Kirche reached the Skadovsk seemingly with time to spare. Arriving on the heels of another group of stalkers, they entered through the door that had been left open for them with Kirche heaving it closed. The two girls automatically navigated the moderately populated bar, making their way over to Beard, who sat in his usual place behind the bar with his face leaned onto his hand in a bored manner. Kirche simply removed her satchel and slapped it down on the bar surface.

"You find something interesting?" Beard idly asked as he opened the satchel. He looked up when he didn't receive any

response, finding that Kirche was distracted by something else in the room, while Louise just stared at him intently. He shrugged, returning to appraising the artifacts that the two girls had brought in.

Louise was sure that Beard thought she probably couldn't understand most of what was being said, and that was understandable since she usually only ever spoke to either Kirche or Siesta, and it was always in Tristainian. In light of recent events, however, both she and Kirche could easily understand everything being said around them.

Finished with his appraisal of the artifacts, Beard placed a single roll of banknotes on the bar which Louise quickly pocketed with a nod of thanks. Kirche scooped her satchel from the bar and quickly made for the stairs while Louise remained.

About to question Louise's lingering presence, a chorus of groans and obscenities suddenly caught Beard's attention. He looked to his side, finding that the television's picture was displaying only a snowy static screen. Grunting, he gave the top of the VCR a few hard thumps in an attempt to correct the issue.

Then, in the tiniest voice, he heard it: "The zombies are getting closer."

Beard sighed despite his success in getting the VCR back on track. "So I've heard. Everyday it's the same-" He stopped dead, his head snapping to stare at the pinkette, or rather, where she had been just a moment before. Looking around, he barely caught the hem of her coat disappearing up the stairs. He stared after her in silence, furrowing his brow. Did Louise just actually say that to him? Beard had gotten the distinct impression that she was unable to speak any language he could understand.

Beard turned his attention back to tending the bar, sighing and shaking his head. The only way those girls could get any weirder is if they all decided to grow an extra pair of arms.

Upstairs, Louise found that neither Siesta nor Kirche were in their usual place across from Owl's, but she could easily hear Siesta having a conversation with somebody nearby. She made her way past Owl's and a large bunk-filled room into Cardan's workshop.

She found Siesta with her back to her leaning sideways on a wall with her arms folded and her left leg cocked slightly to prevent it from resting on the floor. A long coat was thrown over her t-shirt and shorts so as to not reveal too much skin, and while the shorts she wore wouldn't be considered remotely revealing anywhere else, things in the Zone were different. She was talking to Cardan, who was hunched over some weapon that Louise couldn't see due to Siesta being in the way. She also found Kirche, standing just within the room leaning her back onto the wall.

Just as Louise had been about to announce her presence, Siesta looked over her shoulder, smiling when she noticed who had entered the room.

"Hey, how did it go?" Siesta asked in Tristainian, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes.

Louise was silent for a moment, casting a glance at Kirche who only shrugged. "You didn't tell her?" She asked.

"I didn't want to interrupt their conversation," Kirche reasoned, to which Siesta raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't even know you were in the room, actually," Siesta half-laughed, drawing a snort from the redhead.

"Right, well," Louise began, stepping forward and simultaneously raising an eyebrow at the partially disassembled PKM machine gun lying on Cardan's workbench. "We got a good price for a load of artifacts, but Kirche had a bit of an..." Louise gestured to Kirche's dirty clothing. "...accident."

Siesta snorted. "An accident?" She turned to Kirche. "Looks like you went jumping in mud puddles."

Louise motioned to the door with a flick of her head. Siesta nodded in understanding, bidding Cardan a quick farewell before hobbling after the two mages. She hissed and cursed under her breath with each step, resorting to hopping on one foot the majority of the distance to Tremor's old office.

"So what happened?" Siesta asked, plopping down on the bunk bed.

Kirche said nothing, only extracting the two broken halves of her wand from her coat. Siesta watched as Kirche placed the two halves of the wand together. She looked up from the broken wand, and after registering the absolutely forlorn expression on Kirche's face, she promptly burst into laughter.

Kirche's jaw dropped. "How can you laugh? This isn't funny!"

"Your face!" Siesta began, barely able to contain herself. "Oh man, your face! It looks like somebody kicked your puppy, or-or-or took your candy! Ha!"

Feeling a little anger bubbling up inside her, Kirche was about to retort when a loud clap of thunder literally shook the Skadovsk, causing the lights to flicker. Shaking her head, Kirche set the AKM to lean against the wall and then let herself fall into the wheeled chair behind Tremor's desk, causing it to roll backward a few inches as she crossed her arms in indignation.

"I kind of see it, actually," Louise began, standing close to Siesta while playing at her chin as if she were thinking hard. The pinkette smirked. "Definitely looks like her candy's been taken away."

Kirche glowered while Siesta let out another hoot of laughter.

* * *

"Are you positive that this is safe?" Kirche asked loudly, looking down at the rusted metal catwalk before her. "Because honestly, it was making some unhappy noises when you were on it."

She didn't receive a response.

Swallowing, Kirche tenderly stepped out onto the catwalk, her stomach flipping when the metal groaned in protest. Now, looking down through the steel grating of the catwalk, Kirche realized just how high she was off the ground.

"Okay... okay," Kirche breathed, slinging Siesta's AKM onto her back. She turned to the ladder, glancing upward to find Louise's hooded head poking out over the railing.

"Are you afraid of heights?" Louise asked simply, curiously observing Kirche's movements.

"Not... particularly," Kirche replied, staring down once again. "It's just the falling bit that gets me."

"It'll be fine," Louise said, flapping a hand dismissively in an attempt to encourage the Germanian.

"If you say so..." Kirche sighed, reluctantly mounting the ladder. She had never felt fear for heights before, so this was a new sensation for the redhead. Normally, she had her wand, and in any event of a fall she could easily cast levitation and float gently to the ground. Now that her wand was in half, if she fell off this monstrous bridge she was as good as dead.

After waiting out the emission and filling their stomachs, Louise and Kirche found themselves trekking through the Zone once again. This time they purposefully avoided the zombie-plagued areas of Zaton, and instead were now on Preobrazhensky Bridge. Louise had forgotten all about it, but Siesta had reminded her that one of the derelict UAZ's had a couple of crates of 5.45mm ammunition sitting in the back.

Each flat wooden crate contained two sealed cans of ammunition, totalling a whopping 2160 rounds. Being that Louise was the only one of their group using that particular cartridge, a large portion of the ammunition would be traded to Owl for cash. That is, if the crates were even still there.

"There are worse ways to die around here than falling off of this bridge," Louise commented as Kirche reached the top of the ladder.

Despite being relieved to be on a solid surface once again, Kirche gave Louise a look that made the pinkette feel as if she had said something extremely odd. "I'd rather not die at all, just so you know."

Louise whirled around, throwing a brandished bolt straight across to the other side of the bridge. It seemed the path over the fallen pipe that she and Siesta had used before was still clear. "Oh, don't get me wrong, I definitely don't want to die either. Honestly though, if I had to choose between having a bloodsucker latch onto my face, or falling off this bridge, I know exactly what I'd choose."

Kirche grunted as she clambered over the rusted pipe after the pinkette. "You've got a point there, I'll admit."

Sacrificing bolts to probe for anomalies, Louise soon found that the area remained largely unchanged from her last visit a few weeks before. Nevertheless, Louise approached the convoy carefully; walking into a newly spawned anomaly would make for a bad day.

Kirche eyed the first BTR in awe, running her hand along its rusted surface as she passed it by. She had been told that these vehicles could move own their own if they were in proper working order. Judging from the state of the eight- wheeled beast, she doubted that it would ever move again.

"So this is where you found that nerve gas?" Kirche asked, eyeing over the cargo truck as she strolled past. Louise had already moved on, coming to a stop at the lead vehicle.

"Yes," Louise nodded an affirmative, moving to rummage through the back of the open top UAZ. "Honestly, that was one of the weirdest days of my – ugh!"

"What is it?" Kirche asked worriedly, swiftly approaching the pinkette.

"This thing is just a lot heavier than I thought it would be," Louise groaned, using all of her upper body strength to heft the wooden crate out of the back of the UAZ. The weight of the crate high on her body, Louise began involuntarily stumbling backwards. "Uwaah!"

Kirche roared with laughter at the sight of the pinkette as she landed hard on her bottom. "I wish you could have seen your face just then! Your eyes were like two big saucers!"

"Shut up!" Louise growled, hefting the crate off of her body and onto the road. The crate of 5.45mm 5N7 cartridges was quite heavy, and Louise had the problem of having almost no upper body strength.

"Here, let me," Kirche offered, wiping tears from her eyes. She bent down to lift the crate from the road surface, finding out first hand just how heavy the crate was. "Bloody... hell!" Kirche grunted, hefting the crate up into her arms. She moved quickly, setting it down on the UAZ's hood with a resonating thump. Like Louise, Kirche didn't have a remarkable amount of strength in her arms. "Okay, so there's no way were going to be able to carry that all the way back to the Skadovsk."

Louise nodded, climbing to her feet. Carrying this one crate back to the Skadovsk would be an ordeal, so it seemed the second was going to have to wait for another trip. "Yes, I realized that fairly quickly when it put me on my bottom."

Kirche huffed. "So then what do you propose?"

"Well, I've seen these opened before," the Tristainian began, approaching the crate. She bent down in front of the UAZ, drawing the knife sheathed in her boot. "There are two sealed cans in there. I suspect it'll be much easier just to carry those on their own."

Feeling a little wary of the metal strap tightened around the wooden crate, Louise quickly brought her knife down on it a few times before the metal band separated with a surprising amount of force. Lifting the hinged lid, she quickly got to work at removing the first can with the string provided.

"You take the other one," Louise said, testing the weight of the sealed tin of ammunition in her arms. It had some weight to it, but was definitely easier to carry than the entire crate. Kirche nodded, sliding the other can out of the crate and looking it over.

"How do they even get things inside of cans?" Kirche asked as they began to retreat to the ladder. "It baffles me."

"I have no idea," Louise admitted, allowing herself a tiny chuckle. "Canned food is disgusting."

Behind her, Louise heard Kirche let out a noise of disgust. "The worst," she agreed.

They reached the ladder, and Louise immediately removed her backpack.

"What are you doing?" Kirche asked, confused for a moment until she realized the obvious.

"Do you plan on holding that in your arms while climbing down the ladder?" Louise asked dryly. She opened the backpack, and motioned for Kirche to put the ammo inside. "Put it in here, and I'll just pass it down to you."

Kirche stared for a moment. "Are you sure?"

Louise returned the stare, before she realized something as well. "Actually, I'll go down first and then you pass it to me. You've got longer arms."

Agreeing on their method of moving the ammunition down the ladder, Louise quickly descended the ladder, all too aware of the groaning the metal was releasing.

She still hated ladders with a passion.

She reached the bottom of the ladder quickly, and motioned for Kirche to pass her backpack down. Kirche got down on her stomach, letting the pack dangle from one of its straps. The ladder wasn't particularly long, so Louise had figured that she'd be able to easily reach the hanging bag. It turned out that it was just out of her reach.

"This is heavy, Louise," Kirche grunted. "Take it before I drop it on you!"

"I'll catch it, just let it drop."

The Germanian eyed Louise, unsure that dropping the bag into her hands was a good idea. "Are you sure about that? I mean..."

"Yes, Kirche. I'll catch it! Just let it drop, okay?" Louise urged, already tired of standing on the precarious catwalk.

Kirche mentally shrugged. "Whatever you say."

Kirche let go of the backpack, and was surprised when Louise actually did catch it, though, the sudden introduction of the weight caused Louise to stumble backward into the railing, which consequently bent outward under her weight.

"Okay I'm done with this!" Louise yelped in fright, practically leaping onto the concrete underbelly of the bridge. "Done with this bloody bridge! Absolutely done!"

Kirche breathed a sigh of relief. She had thought that Louise was definitely going over the railing for a moment there. She made her own way down the ladder, finding Louise breathing heavily on the underside of the bridge.

"R-Remember what I said about falling off this bridge?" Louise rattled quickly. "I take it back. I-I-I definitely take it back."

She wanted to laugh, but Kirche had been just as scared as Louise in that moment. "Yeah, I really don't blame you there."

After dividing up the ammunition once again, with Louise opting to keep her own can inside of her backpack, the two girls quickly made their way back to the road, eager to return to the Skadovsk and forget that Preobrazhensky Bridge ever existed.

For Kirche and Louise, today hadn't been a great day. Between running through the woods from a hoard of zombies, Kirche breaking her wand, and almost falling off of a massive bridge, Louise certainly thought that this was about as much bad as the Zone could throw at them for one day.

As it turned out, she was quite wrong in that regard.

The two girls walked along the outer wall of the ranger station, making their way back to the Skadovsk along the road when they both froze after hearing a distinct noise come from behind them.

It sounded like somebody had just cocked the hammer on a gun.

"Don't fucking move, either of you."

They didn't.

* * *

Another fist connected solidly with Louise's stomach, sending her crashing to the grimy floor. Clutching her midsection, Louise let out a shrill cry of pain as a boot grazed across her face, sending her head spinning.

"Shut up!"

Another blow to Louise's body, this time a swift kick connected with her side. Still stunned from the blow to her head, she only managed a weak groan in protest of the physical abuse.

She was inside the ranger station, in the large building with the furnaces. She could still comprehend that much during her mind's current state. She and Kirche had been ambushed by a group of four bandits, who had promptly separated them, stripped them of their weapons and equipment, and had set to letting out some anger on their bodies.

Lying on the floor in a room that had probably been an office at some point, Louise had never felt so alone despite there being others in the room with her.

"Don't you think that's a bit much dude? She's just a damn kid," a second voice spoke up, laced with the desire to be doing anything but this. "Let's just take her shit and leave."

"No way," the first voice grunted as if this were business as usual. "These bitches are with those stalkers on that stupid boat. They killed Viktor and all his boys, I'm making sure they pay for it."

Before she could even think about arguing the fact that she had done no such thing, she distinctly heard what sounded like the clinking of a belt being undone. Staring up at the ceiling, her eyes widened slightly and her stomach knotted as her head began to clear.

 _Oh no no no no..._

Louise began to wonder if this was it for her, violated and then likely shot afterward. She tentatively craned her head upward, expecting to see something beyond disgusting, only to find that the man she had expected to be advancing on her with lecherous intent had actually completely turned around.

The two bandits in the room with her had begun arguing. Louise didn't care to pay attention to subject of their argument, probably over who would get to go first. Her eyes had fixed themselves on something much more interesting.

On her would-be rapist's back, a revolver was tucked into the waistband of his pants. Louise's eyes widened into saucers, eyeing over the curvature of the gun as the bandit pushed his friend into the wall, shouting in his balaclava covered face.

Louise knew she had to decide then and there what she was going to do. If these poor excuses for human beings were going to try and bring her down like this, she was at least going to put up one hell of a fight.

As the taste of blood rolled over her tongue, Louise leapt to her feet and quickly closed the distance to the bandit, wrapping her hand around the revolver's grip and ripping it from the man's pants.

That part had gone a lot better than she had expected.

Ideas of what to do next flew through her head like rapid-fire. She had immediately contemplated forcing the men into giving up their weapons, and then making them walk back to where ever they had come from in only their underwear. That seemed like something she and Siesta could laugh about as they laid down for bed at night.

However, despite her thinking that was a rather funny idea, her body was already reacting. In the back of her mind, she knew that one little girl with a revolver wasn't enough to force four men into surrender.

With time seeming like it was passing at light speed, Louise pressed the revolver's muzzle firmly into the bandit's upper back vaguely where his heart would be as he let out a noise of surprise. That was about all he was able to do as Louise's index finger rocketed through the revolver's double-action pull in an instant. The muzzle exploded against the man's worn coat and the revolver itself nearly flew out of Louise's hand, jolting upward and back with an immense amount of recoil. The sound of the gunshot echoed off the walls and the bandit's back, leaving the pinkette's ears ringing.

The bandit slumped to the floor, revealing his comrade against the wall clutching at his own chest. The bullet, or fragments of it, had passed through the first bandit and ended up wounding the other man. He slid downward against the wall, coming to a rest on his bottom. He looked to be attempting to convince Louise not to shoot him, his free hand held up and his eyes desperate.

Louise couldn't hear whatever the man was saying to her, her ears were still ringing painfully, and even if she could hear, it wouldn't have changed what was going to happen next.

Her face blank, she raised the revolver so that the muzzle was nearly touching the man's forehead, and swiftly pulled the trigger. The bullet crashed through the bandit's skull, creating a large exit wound out of the back and painting a foot-and- a-half diameter section of the wall with blood and brain matter.

Louise let the revolver hang at her side as she stared down at the two bodies, temporarily deaf to the world around her. She wasn't thinking about what she was doing now, it was as if her body had been switched over to auto pilot the moment her fingers had wrapped around the gun. However, there was one thought that did manage to seep through her clouded mind.

She had to find Kirche.

* * *

In the massive room where the furnaces were now snarled and twisted shadows of their former selves, two bandits were frozen after hearing the gunshots echo through the building. One bandit, wielding Kirche's Kalashnikov, glanced down at his partner who straddled the redhead in question, pinning her to the floor.

Turning his head back towards the doorway he last saw his friends disappear through, the bandit called out. "Hey! Did

you guys shoot her already? What gives?"

He was met with no response.

Glancing back down to the bandit pinning Kirche, he shrugged nervously.

"Just go check it out, I'm sure she just got fucking out of hand and they had to put her down," the bandit pinning Kirche suggested, keeping his grip on her arms tight as she once again struggled to get free.

"The hell with that, like I'm going in there," the bandit with the Kalashnikov shot back. "Yeah sure, I walk into that room and then I get my friggin' head blown off, that's a great idea, Yuriy."

"They just can't hear you," the other bandit replied in annoyance, spreading his arms out to his sides to gesture the obvious. "There's no way that girl killed both of them, just go in there and-"

The bandit pinning the Germanian to the floor hadn't realized at that moment that he had actually let go of her arms, allowing them free range of movement. Kirche's hands both shot out desperately, searching for anything that she could use against these men. She quickly found that something.

A short length of rebar on the debris covered floor, complete with a fist-sized clump of concrete still desperately clinging to the end.

She swung ferociously, cutting the bandit off mid-sentence as the concrete hanging on the end of the metal bar crumbled against the side of his head. The man slumped forward onto Kirche with a groan, now barely conscious.

"What the fuck!?" The AKM wielding bandit cried out, approaching Kirche with the weapon at hip level. "You fucking bitch! I'll-"

 _BLAM!_

The Kalashnikov clattered to the floor as the bandit stumbled forward as a result of a gunshot wound through his midsection. He cried out in shock, until a second bullet tore through his back and into his chest cavity. He hit the floor like a sack of potatoes, gurgling blood for a few moments before he became still.

Kirche rolled the semi-conscious man off, genuinely surprised to see Louise swiftly striding in her direction, revolver in hand and her face an emotionless mask. The redhead shakily rose to her feet, the bruises she had received throbbing painfully. She wiped at her bleeding nose, her eyes stuck on Louise as she grew closer.

On the ground, the single living bandit in the building began to regain himself despite the agony occurring on the inside of his skull. The first thing to greet his cleared vision was a pink-haired girl that was holding what he knew to be his friend's revolver.

"Shit!" He propped himself up, shuffling backward a few feet. The revolver was raised as Louise came within the final few steps, leveled directly at his face. "J-Just wait a-"

The last thing Yuriy the bandit ever saw was the revolver's cylinder spinning over onto the next cartridge.

Kirche stood with mouth agape, her eyes fixed on the bandit's cracked open and profusely leaking cranium. "L-Louise... you... you just..." Her gaze moved over to the pinkette's face, which still remained a stoic mask. "Are you...?"

The weight of what Louise had just done seemed to have hit her all at once, welling up in her like an angry storm. Taking a few wobbly steps to the side, the revolver hit the floor as Louise collapsed to her knees and promptly began vomiting everything out of her stomach.

"Louise!" Kirche exclaimed, stumbling on a twisted ankle as she rushed to her friend's side. She crouched next to the heaving girl, finding that there was blood leaking from the corners of her mouth with an unhealthy amount mixed with the bile and semi-digested food on the floor. "Oh God, Louise are you alright!? Louise!"

The pinkette turned her head to regard the Germanian as she placed a hand on her shoulder. Breathing like she had just run a marathon, Louise couldn't think of a single thing to say to the girl next to her.

She was most certainly not alright.

After a few moments of opening and closing her mouth in attempts to get a word out, Louise opted to wipe at it instead, smearing the blood on her face.

"Kirche..." Louise finally managed to croak out, weakly gazing into the redhead's eyes. "Let's..." Another dry heave hit, cutting her off momentarily. She took a few deep breaths before continuing. "Let's just get our things, a-and put this place behind us."

Glancing back at the two bodies in the room with them, Kirche nodded to the pinkette, easily getting on board with Louise's newest idea.

* * *

The first thing Tabitha noticed when she woke up, was that it was rather breezy compared to when she had fallen asleep. She could also hear the sound of something hitting against metal.

Her eyes snapped open, realizing that she didn't remember when she had last settled down to sleep. Her eyes open, the world was a blur around her. She was missing her glasses. She began feeling out around her, running her hands over the strange metal surface she had been lying on.

The glasses were quickly found, and Tabitha eagerly returned them to her face. The world now clear, Tabitha's eyes widened slightly as she looked down. Through the grated steel surface, she could see that she was definitely over one- hundred feet off of the ground. The wind gusted, and the sound of something smacking against a metal surface reached her ears once more as Tabitha stared out at the landscape around her.

Tabitha had woken up on top of a radio tower, by herself, in the middle of a forest.

* * *

 _A/N: Aaaand we're back. Yay. Not much to say other than if you've been wanting more Zone adventures with Louise and friends, well, here you go._

 _Also, we've got a new cover, which I think is awesome._


	13. The Life of a Stalker II

_The Life of a Stalker II_

 _Somewhere in the Zone_

Tabitha had quickly discerned that it had been evening time when she had woken up since the sun had quickly dipped beneath the horizon to leave her in darkness. The temperature had dropped, and the Academy uniform Tabitha still worse did little to keep her warm. Other than the worrying fact that she would be travelling at night in a place she'd never been before, something even more worrying had come to light.

The singular, white moon hanging gracefully in the darkening sky.

For what felt like hours, Tabitha simply stared up at the moon in a state of disbelief. How exactly was this possible? What happened to the two moons she had become accustomed to? Where was she?

The catwalk surrounding the radio tower was triangular in shape, with a ladder in the center that extended a little upwards and all the way down to the ground. The tower itself extended about fifteen feet above the catwalk, and aside from the sets of antenna and blinking lights that had long ago burned out, there was something very interesting adorning the uppermost part of the tower's structure.

The source of the rather annoying noise, Tabitha's staff.

Hanging precariously from the steel structure by its crook, the staff moved with every gust of wind, coming back down to hit against the tower periodically.

Tabitha looked to the staff as it rapped against the tower once again, mentally chastising herself for standing around staring at the sky for so long. Then again, wouldn't anybody? The moons had been replaced by only one, the constellations were all gone, and she had never seen a structure like this before in her life. Deciding that she should get things on track, Tabitha's first objective was to get her staff, and to do that she would use her spare wand. She reached for her side, to where her spare wand was usually kept holstered in the waistband of her skirt.

It wasn't there.

Confused, Tabitha pulled the waistband of her skirt away from her body, finding the small cylindrical holster still in place minus the wand it was meant to carry.

So she was off to a bad start. No matter. She'd just have to climb up and get it.

Circling the tower, Tabitha found that her staff was unfortunately not hanging from the same side as the ladder, but being that the tower only had three sides, the ladder and staff had no choice but to be adjacent from each other.

As Tabitha confidently ascended the ladder, she tried to remember events previous to waking up on this tower, but was only able to draw a big blank. Something had to have been going on for her spare wand to be missing, but she had no idea what.

She hoped that Sylphid was alright, where ever she was now. She felt no connection to her familiar, which was worrying.

At the top of the ladder a rusted panel box was bolted to the side of the tower, its door having detached itself long ago. Uninterested in the guts of the panel, Tabitha turned her attention to her staff. She was at the perfect height to grab at it, but upon testing her reach she found that her arm wasn't long enough to wrap around the tower.

Tentatively, Tabitha left the security of the ladder and stepped sideways out onto the tower's structure. Edging towards the tower's edge, it was only a matter of time before she would reach the staff.

A particularly heavy gust of wind decided now to make its presence known. The tower groaning against its support cables, Tabitha clutched at the steel as she felt herself almost torn away. Through a squinting set of eyes, she saw her staff sticking almost straight out from the tower just as the wind suddenly died down. As the staff swung downward, the wind suddenly picked up again in a different direction.

Tabitha could only watch as her staff rolled out from the section of support it hung from, hit the catwalk's railing, and then went end over end as it dropped to the ground below. She stared at the spot her staff had been moments before, her expression flat and even.

If Tabitha were the kind of person to swear when frustrated or annoyed, she would have done it now.

* * *

Looking suspiciously like a messy-haired caterpillar, Kirche sprung up to a sitting position in her sleeping bag covered in sweat. After a few moments of heavy breathing and staring straight ahead, she brought her hands out of her cocoon to rub at her face.

"Nightmares?"

Kirche nearly leapt out of the sleeping bag as she used both of her hands to quickly suppress a scream of surprise. As it turned out, Louise wasn't in her usual sleeping spot in the bunk above Siesta. Instead, she was sitting in the desk chair hugging her knees to her chest, barely visible in the dark room. From her nearby spot on the floor, Kirche glanced up in pinkette's direction.

"God, Louise! Why don't you just give me a heart attack?" Kirche exclaimed in the most hush voice her excitement would allow. Louise simply stayed in her position and eyed Kirche over her knees.

"Everyone gets them, you know."

Kirche hesitated before responding. "Nightmares?"

Louise nodded.

"Well obviously," Kirche said slowly, narrowing her eyes at the pinkette as if she had said something remarkably dumb. "Of course everybody has nightmares. You don't have to talk to me like I'm five."

In the dark room, Kirche somehow knew Louise was rolling her eyes at her.

"No, you cretin!" Louise hissed, sounding more than exasperated. "I mean here in the Zone, everybody in the Zone has the nightmares. You've been having them almost every night since you've come here, right?"

Realization clicked in Kirche's head. "I have... so that's normal? I thought that it was just me."

"It's normal," Louise confirmed. "Well, normal for the Zone at least."

Frowning, Kirche eyed the sprawled out form of Siesta on the lower bunk. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully. "What about her?"

"What _about_ Siesta?" Louise asked, confused. "What makes her any different from us?"

"She doesn't seem to be bothered by it."

"After four years, she's probably gotten used to it," Louise suggested, although she had no real proof. She and Siesta had only skimmed the topic of the nightmares.

Sighing, Kirche felt Louise's reasoning was sound. "So is that why you're awake? The nightmares?" She asked.

"No," Louise simply responded.

Kirche opened her mouth to inquire further, but decided against it at the last second. The previous day's events would make anybody lose a little sleep, especially if they were the one who had pulled the trigger. Kirche couldn't shake the image of the bandit briefly begging for his life, before Louise blew a hole through his head without a second thought.

She could only imagine how Louise felt about the subject.

Returning her head to the bunched up coat she was using as a pillow, Kirche turned away from the Tristainian. "I'm going back to sleep."

The chair creaked as Louise stood. "I think I'll try to get some as well."

Kirche listened as Louise padded across the floor and scaled to the top of the bunk bed. She exhaled deeply once she was sure the pinkette was in place, thinking one thing as she closed her eyes.

 _Why did all of this have to happen?_

* * *

Resigned to climbing down the massively long ladder, Tabitha had run into a bit of an issue. The last ten feet or so of the ladder seemed to be missing. In fact, she could only just see it lying in the tall grass nearby.

So far, things weren't going as well as she had hoped.

Hanging from the ladder by only her right arm and leg, Tabitha pushed off, rolling as she hit the ground to negate the impact. Fortunately for the blue-haired girl, that part had actually gone well. Rising to her feet, she brushed herself off and took in her surroundings.

The small clearing that housed the radio tower was bordered by an aging chain-link fence with a dense forest all around. A small white building sat near the tower itself, and a gate was situated on one section of fence with a narrow dirt road beyond.

Now all she had to do was find her staff. Circling the tower, Tabitha was confident that it hadn't gotten far. She easily found it hiding in the grass.

Feeling like things were getting on track, Tabitha approached the gated section of the fence. It was made of two sections of the same chain-link material as the rest of the fence, only hinged on either end with a heavy padlock in the middle keeping them together.

Judging from how rusted the padlock had become, she doubted that a simple 'unlock' spell would let it open. In her mind, there were about a dozen ways she could move past this gate.

She opted to use a vertical blade of wind to bisect the lock, freeing the two sections of the gate. The rusted metal crying in anguish, Tabitha pushed open one side of the gate far enough for her to pass through and swiftly began moving down the road.

Her eyes occasionally drifted to the moon as she walked, a tell-tale sign that something was definitely wrong. She had almost made it home, having crossed the border into Gallia just the day before. Guiche and the others would have been happy to have her stay in Tristain, and she wouldn't have minded it either, but they understood her need to return home. She hadn't seen them since they had parted at the gates of Tristania.

She had a feeling that she wasn't going to get to see home for quite a while now.

Continuing along the road, Tabitha had no idea what to expect ahead of her.

* * *

Hearing a series of loud, muffled noises, Louise groaned in displeasure as she was roused. She buried her head in her pillow as the noises continued, mentally willing them away. She desperately wanted more sleep, and had fully planned on sleeping in today.

The noises almost sounded like gunfire for a moment.

Louise sprung up in the bed, her head coming within inches of hitting the ceiling. Now that she was paying attention, the noises were definitely gunfire. Throwing the covers off, she swung her legs out over the bed and dropped to the floor.

Flicking on the light switch, she searched around desperately for her pants. Standing in the middle of the room in only shorts and a t-shirt, Louise prayed that nobody would pass through the curtain and into the room. She had initially slipped under the covers with the pants on like she usually did, but she had become unbearably warm during the night and had shed them to throw them across the room.

Finding them sitting atop the shelf behind Tremor's desk, Louise pulled down on a hanging leg and caught her pants in her arms. She swiftly threw them on and grabbed her belt which hung from one of the bunk bed's posts. Hastily throwing the belt that housed her holstered Makarov around her waist, Louise noticed that Siesta seemed to finally be waking up.

The dark-haired girl sat up in her bed with a yawn, eyeing Louise tiredly. "What're yuh doin', Louise?"

"Don't you hear it?" Louise hissed, going for her coat.

Siesta was silent for a few moments before her eyes went wide. "Shit! What's going on?"

"I don't know!" Louise responded, throwing her coat over her shoulders.

Still cocooned in her sleeping bag, Kirche sat up with her hair a complete rats nest. "Whas happenin'?" She slurred,

wiping the sleep from her eyes.

"No idea, Kirche!" Siesta replied, leaping out of bed despite her injured leg. "But get up and grab some guns!" Kirche's eyes shone in realization as she sprung up from the floor.

Siesta grunted as she grabbed up her ammo pouches and her Mosin rifle, and then limped out the door without another word in only her t-shirt and shorts.

"Siesta!" Louise called after the stalker. "You haven't put on any bloody clothes! Siesta!"

Knowing that Siesta wasn't coming back, Louise heaved a ragged sigh of frustration and grabbed up her Kalashnikov just in time to see Kirche throwing on her own coat.

"Louise!" Kirche called as the pinkette locked in a magazine and chambered her weapon. "Oh hell, Louise I can't find my shoes!"

"Oh for the love of the Founder, forget it!" Louise replied, slipping her feet into her own boots and leaving the laces undone.

"I'm not going outside without any shoes!"

"Oh my God, Kirche!" Louise urged, standing next the door. "Just come on!"

Kirche quickly found her boots underneath the desk, and got to work at putting them on. "I have them!"

"Come on, come on!" Louise quickly motioned for Kirche to come, practically bouncing on her heels in anxiety.

Kirche didn't bother with the laces, sweeping up the AKM from the desk and following the pinkette out the door. It immediately became apparent that they were not the only ones roused by the sounds of gunfire. The narrow hallways of the Skadovsk were packed with armed stalkers making for the upper decks. Kirche and Louise both joined the other stalkers, heading for the stairs to venture further up into the Skadovsk's superstructure.

At the top of the stairs, Louise followed closely behind the stalker in front of her. The gunfire became clearer and louder as she neared an open door, reaching a crescendo when she finally barreled out through the door with Kirche on her heels. Using a hand to shield her eyes against the early morning light, Louise found herself on a small area of deck on the Skadovsk's stern.

Following the other stalkers, Louise and Kirche rounded the superstructure and entered a narrow walkway that connected the bow and stern sections of the ship. Louise gawked, seeing the reason why the gunfire had started in the first place. Dozens of zombies had come wandering down from the north, shambling through the marshes straight towards the Skadovsk.

Siesta was easily found, standing out like a sore thumb as she took cover and loaded her rifle behind the thick metal railing that protected anyone in the walkway from falling overboard. Most stalkers seemed intent on moving down to the main deck, where there was much more space to move around, and many more sections of railing to take cover behind. Only a sparse few took cover in the walkway, and there seemed to be more stalkers above on higher levels of the superstructure taking shots at the advancing hoard.

Sliding to a halt on Siesta's right side along with Kirche, Louise prayed that the steel was thick enough to stop a bullet.

"Siesta!" Louise yelled over the gunfire, glaring at the ex-maid as she finished loading her Mosin. "Look at what you're wearing for God's sake!"

"I know!" Siesta shouted back, flinching along with the two girls as bullets slammed into the ship's hull below them. "There was no time!"

Louise was about to retort, but Siesta didn't seem inclined to have a conversation as she peeked above the railing and fired her rifle. Timidly poking her head over the lip of the railing, Louise further examined the situation. Zombies were dropping left and right from the combined fire of the Skadovsk's residents, but the mindless beings had already gotten dangerously close. Most of the zombie's fire was concentrated towards the main deck, but a steady amount of lead sailed towards those taking cover in the walkway and above.

Both Louise and Kirche shrieked as projectiles snapped over their heads and burrowed themselves into the metal behind them. Siesta quickly ducked into cover as she cycled a new round into the Mosin's chamber, and nearby stalkers cursed and swore in surprise.

Leaping up from cover with her Kalashnikov, Louise found the offending zombified stalker shambling out from around the nearby tugboat with a rifle she didn't recognize. She quickly let off four rounds in semi-automatic towards the zombie's torso, satisfied to see it fall face first into the mud before she returned to cover. Kirche peeked over the railing, hastily firing on another nearby zombie that clutched at a pump-action shotgun. A single bullet from the AKM found a target, smashing through the zombie's knee and thoroughly destroying the joint. Kirche kept firing, five, and then ten times until she was absolutely sure the zombie wouldn't be getting back up.

She ducked back into cover, her back to the railing and her breathing heavy. During her brief time as a stalker, Kirche had shot plenty of things, one bloodsucker, numerous blind dogs and angry boars, and a heavily pitted section of steel that sat against a tree up in the hills, but she had never shot at anything human until now. Flinching as more bullets landed nearby, she realized that it hadn't really hit her hard at all. Perhaps it was because she was in a fight or die scenario, or maybe it was just because they were zombies.

Siesta saw another zombie at the end of her sights fall, working the bolt and ejecting the final cartridge, she kneeled down behind the railing to reload. Her left thigh throbbed in absolute agony, and it would soon become completely unbearable. She hoped that the zombies would be dealt with soon, for once longing to be back in the bed. She shifted to sit with her back against the railing, relieving the pressure from her leg as she fished a five round stripper clip from the pouch beside her on the deck. She swiftly fed the rounds into her rifle, batting the clip away before slamming the bolt forward and down.

As she heaved herself off of her bottom to resume firing, she idly noticed that the metal deck was rather cold on her bare feet.

Just as Siesta had risen and fired off her first round, Louise ducked back behind the railing to remove a spent magazine from her weapon. Returning the empty magazine to her coat, she brought out a new one and made to shakily lock it into her AKS-74U. Bullets landed frighteningly close by, causing Kirche to squawk and fall over onto her bottom.

"Kirche!" Louise cried, her eyes darting over the Germanian's body in a search for any wounds.

"Bloody hell that was close!" Kirche breathed, quickly scrambling to a crouched position when she noticed a pair of stalkers coming through the walkway and heading towards the main deck.

Siesta eyed Cardan as he swiftly moved past with the PKM machine gun she had seen him working on the day before. Behind him, a stalker she wasn't familiar with was weighed down with multiple jingling belts of ammunition. "You're not hit?" She called out to the redhead, who shook her head.

"N-no! I'm sure I would have noticed if I was!"

Siesta let another shot off at a zombie firing its submachine gun towards the main deck. It wasn't really the time to say it, but she wanted to tell Kirche that she'd be surprised at the few seconds it may take to realize you've actually been shot. Another projectile from Siesta's rifle found its target just as the steady braying of Cardan's machine gun joined the hectic pops and cracks around them.

Louise and Kirche both observed with interest as bright green tracers spat out of the PKM, streaking across the marshes every fifth round. They quickly resumed fire, rifles thumping at their shoulders. As Siesta ejected the last cartridge on yet another spent magazine, she noticed something rather encouraging.

"Hey!" The dark-haired girl called out to her pink-haired companion. When it became apparent Louise couldn't hear her over the noise of her carbine, Siesta delivered a quick series of taps to her shoulder to gain her attention. "They're thinning out."

Ceasing fire for a moment, Louise nodded in agreement. "I've noticed."

Pausing to reload the AKM, Kirche prayed that this would be over soon. She closely eyed the weapon in her hands as she pulled the charging handle to the rear, letting it fly forward to chamber a new round. Even if she were rather used to having these kinds of guns around her, she couldn't help but still be amazed at how far ahead of smoothbore muzzleloaders these weapons had come.

Kirche let off another few rounds next to Louise, but paused when she noticed how far off the remaining zombies were. Louise paused as well.

"I don't think my gun shoots that far," Louise commented, finding that the level of gunfire coming from the Skadovsk had drastically fallen. Most of the stalkers still shooting were Cardan with his machine gun and others using long range rifles.

Siesta eyed the short-barreled AK for a moment before commenting. "Not accurately, at least. Your barrel is too short."

Louise sighed, slumping down to the deck with her back against the railing. Kirche still watched the remaining zombies slowly thin out, while Siesta sat down next to the pinkette.

"You alright?" Siesta asked, eyeing the pinkette out of the corner of her eye.

"I'm fine," Louise quietly responded. Siesta turned to eye her fully, her eyes flicking to the three scars along the right side of her face as she considered bringing up yesterday's events. Kirche had explained the entire situation, while Louise had simply left to be alone for a while. Siesta decided against bringing it up as Louise continued speaking. "What about you? Are you okay?"

Siesta scoffed, collecting the stripper clips she had dropped during the fight. "It feels like somebody stuck a hot fire poker in my leg, and my feet are freezing." The ex-maid emphasized the latter by wriggling her toes. Siesta and Louise both glanced at Kirche when she slumped down against the railing as well.

"Perhaps we should get you inside then," Louise suggested, eyeing the ex-maid's bandages. She mentally reminded herself that they needed changing.

Siesta opened her mouth to respond, stopping when the gunfire suddenly died off. She used her rifle to help herself to her feet, and peered out across the marshes. Zombified corpses absolutely littered the area from as close as ten feet from the Skadovsk's hull, to over four-hundred meters away.

"Hell of a way to start a morning, huh?" Siesta commented, turning to the two girls at her side. Louise simply stared out into the marsh, while Kirche scoffed.

"I can't say I've had a worse wake up call."

Siesta chuckled, her laughter dying off when she tested her weight on her injured leg.

A final shot came from above, and as a result of the absence of any other gunfire Siesta could clearly hear a bolt being worked and a spent casing hitting a metal surface. The shot was followed by some mumbling, until the call went out.

"Stalkers! Looks like we're clear for now!"

Many of the stalkers around them immediately seemed inclined to head back inside, a few of them to return to sleeping, while most were now up for the day. Siesta moved to bend to retrieve her ammunition pouches from the deck, groaning in pain as she did so.

"Inside," Louise ordered, poking the ex-maid in the back. "Now. Go."

Siesta scoffed. "Yeah, okay Mom." She turned to face the pinkette. "You want to go see if we won anything good? My leg is freaking killing me right now, and too many people are staring at my ass."

Louise nodded after a moment's contemplation. "I can do that."

Siesta departed, hobbling towards the door along with many others. It seemed her initial adrenaline had quickly worn off. Louise turned to Kirche, who still remained.

"Aren't you going back inside?"

Kirche jumped like she had been broken out of a daze, moving to the side when a stalker brushed past. "Oh! Yes... um, yes I am."

"You're rattled," Louise observed, finding that the AKM was shaking in Kirche's grasp.

The Germanian frowned. "And how are you not? After that?"

"I am, Kirche," Louise stated, raising a hand to show Kirche that it was visibly shaking. "I'm like a bloody leaf right now. It's been like that ever since yesterday, actually."

Kirche was silent for a moment before her frown deepened. She decided she didn't even want to talk about the issue that was the entirety of yesterday. She sighed, deciding to change the subject. "I just feel so fragile without my wand. It's honestly like the slightest thing could come by and kill me. I feel naked."

"Oh come off it," Louise scoffed, rolling her eyes. "You're honestly tougher than that, you're a Zerbst! There's a good

reason our families have been at odds since the beginning of time."

Kirche didn't look entirely convinced. Knowing that Kirche and Siesta tended to get along most of the time, Louise decided to inject some of the ex-maid's logic into the conversation.

"When I first came to the Zone I was the same way because I didn't have my wand, but Siesta gave me some fairly useful advice," Louise paused. "'Who needs magic, when all of your problems can be solved with guns?'"

Kirche looked at Louise like she had just said the stupidest thing imaginable, before she promptly let out a bout of laughter. "Siesta honestly said that to you?"

"Yes," Louise nodded, smirking at the memory, although she hadn't been the least bit amused at the time. "While I obviously don't fully agree with it, there's definitely some merit there somewhere."

Kirche cast her gaze down at the weapon in her hands for a few moments, before she looked to Louise. "I suppose there's – waah!" The Germanian had moved to take a step and had nearly tripped on her own shoe laces.

Louise covered her mouth, suppressing giggles to the best of her ability. "You... y-you idiot!"

Kirche gaped at the pinkette for a moment, before her mouth sprang into action. "Oh shut up, you!"

The two girls left the mostly deserted deck and ventured back into the ship, closing the door behind them. They swiftly headed downstairs, both consciously taking care not to trip on their untied laces. They reached Tremors office, where Kirche cleared her weapon and laid it on the desk before flopping down on top of her sleeping bag. Louise quickly entered the room, grabbed the satchel they normally used for artifact collecting, and made for the door.

"Do you want anything in particular?" Louise asked half-seriously, stopping in the doorway to eye Siesta, who had already gotten to work at changing her bandages.

"Something badass!" Siesta chirped, without even looking up.

Louise scoffed, disappearing from the door with the satchel hanging from her shoulder.

Sure that the pinkette was well out of earshot, Kirche craned her head upward to look at Siesta. "Do you think she's really okay?"

Siesta still didn't look up from her task, eyeing her healing wound with a wince as the final bandage came off. "You mean about yesterday? Give her some time, Kirche. It's only been a day. She'll talk about it when she wants to."

Kirche sighed, resting her head back. "Are you sure about that?"

Siesta stopped, eyeing the Germanian. "I know how she feels right now. She just needs a little time, trust me."

Not knowing how to word what she wanted to say, Kirche simply let it out. "Siesta, how... many people have you killed?"

Laughing bitterly, Siesta sighed. She stared off into space for a moment, memories of the past four years flicking through her head. "I lost count ages ago."

Silence filled the room for a few moments, before Kirche spoke again.

"Have you ever seen her laugh?"

"Louise? No," Siesta replied. "Louise doesn't laugh. She might smile from time to time, but I've never seen her laugh."

"She laughed up on the deck, after you left."

Siesta's attention caught, she gave Kirche a confused glance. "Any... uh, particular reason why?"

Kirche exhaled. "I tripped on my shoe laces."

Chuckling, Siesta shook her head. "I would have laughed at you too. Actually, I guess I just did."

"Pillock," Kirche muttered, further exciting the ex-maid's laughter.

Exiting through the bar door, Louise immediately took a left and ventured into the zombie filled marshes. Stalkers had already gotten to work at stripping the corpses of any useful equipment, so Louise hoped she hadn't wasted too much

time. The mud sucked at her boots as she made straight for the tugboat, intent on seeing if that rifle she hadn't recognized was still there.

Finding the corpse in question, the rifle was indeed still present. Slinging her Kalashnikov onto her back, Louise extracted the rifle from the mud, knowing that it would need a thorough cleaning for it to function reliably. Louise hunted around the G3A3's magazine well, finding the paddle type release easily. She removed the magazine from the rifle to find that it was still topped with live cartridges. Magazine still in hand, she pulled rearward on what she thought was the charging handle, and was satisfied to find a round ejected from the chamber.

She felt Siesta would like the rifle, being that the rounds in its magazine seemed rather large. Siesta's philosophy seemed to be along the lines of 'more is better', so after returning the magazine to the weapon, she placed the rifle on the ground and rolled the corpse onto its back. The zombie had almost no magazines on its person, the only few being empty, likely placed there before the stalker had entered their zombified state.

Despite being void of ammunition, the magazines would be useful if Siesta planned on keeping the weapon instead of selling it, so in the satchel they went. Holding the G3A3 by its foregrip, Louise moved on.

As she walked through the marsh, she came across loads of Makarov's, MP5's, break-action shotguns and many other weapons she didn't take any interest in. Most corpses seemed to be already stripped down for the most part.

Louise jumped slightly as a gunshot rolled through the air. Somebody simply finishing off a zombie, she hoped. After a few moments of silence, she continued her search.

She had hoped she wouldn't come across any half-alive zombies, but that hope was dashed away when she noticed a zombie crawling over another corpse, ignorant of her presence. Looking ahead of the zombie, Louise realized that it was actually crawling towards a gun lying on the ground. Strolling over, Louise stopped in front of the mindless human and nudged the pistol away with her foot.

The zombie stopped, and looked up at her with a vacant gaze. Louise stared back at the zombie's face, eyeing over all the signs that a stalker had indeed become zombified: pale and gaunt face, slack-jawed expression, bleeding from the eyes, ears, or nose, and glazed over and unfocused eyes. Deciding on the zombie's fate, Louise reached into her coat instead of going for her Makarov, and extracted a different gun. The revolver she had used in the ranger station.

She let the Ruger GP100 hang in her hand for a moment before she cocked the hammer with her thumb and leveled it down at the face below her.

For a moment, they just simply stared at each other.

Suddenly, the zombie let out a vicious gurgle, an arm cocking back to swipe at Louise's legs. Her eyes widening slightly, Louise's finger suddenly snapped down on the trigger to give the mindless human a merciful end. She sighed through her nose as the echo rolled through the hills.

A pair of stalkers came out of the reeds nearby, the rustling alerting Louise to their presence. She turned and eyed Cardan, who carried an arm full of unloaded rifles along with another stalker who carried just as many, if not more. Cardan offered a slight nod in greeting, and Louise returned a small one of her own as she stared at the pair.

She returned the revolver to her coat, making a mental reminder to get some sort of back holster or something for it later, and turned her attention to the pistol she had moved with her foot. Placing the H&K rifle on the ground nearby, she retrieved the Sig Sauer P226 and was pleased to see that it was in favourable condition. She released the magazine, dropped it in the satchel, and pulled the slide rearward with a hand over the ejection port. Cantering the weapon, she let the chambered round fall out into her hand and then let the slide snap forward.

All of it went in the satchel, with Louse unsure if she was going to use it to replace her Makarov, or sell it off to Owl.

Louise rolled the corpse off of the other corpse and onto its back, unhappy to find no magazines of any kind. Thinking for a moment, she decided that it was entirely likely that the P226 wasn't the zombie's gun, and had just been nearby. She thought that perhaps the corpse the zombie had been crawling over might have been the owner of the gun, so she made to roll it over. Doing so, something under the body caught her eye, making her pause for a moment.

There seemed to be a rifle underneath this corpse, lying almost lengthways to the body. Louise grunted, having had about enough of rolling bodies over as she moved the corpse onto its back. She lifted the AK-74 from the mud, eyeing over its dark synthetic stock, and most notably, the bracket mounted to the side of the receiver that supported an optic over the dust cover. Clearing the weapon, Louise peered through the PK-AS sight and placed the reticule in the sky.

Louise was no expert on guns, but she felt it was reasonable to think that this was a nice weapon. Kalashnikov in one hand and H&K in the other, Louise decided to head back to the Skadovsk, feeling thoroughly weighed down.

As she trudged through the mud, she idly realized that most of the AK-74 magazines she had were tan in color, and would clash with black stock of the Kalashnikov hanging her in hand.

She scoffed at the thought.

* * *

"And that's how I got this," Siesta was saying, her sleeved rolled up to reveal a long scar along her upper arm. "I'm pretty sure if I hadn't moved when I did he would have got me right in the neck."

"Did you kill him afterward?" Kirche asked.

Siesta shook her head. "No, I didn't get the chance. Petruha plugged him full of holes before I could do anything."

"I see," Kirche began, having moved to the desk chair. She folded her arms behind her head. "Sounds like you were lucky."

"I think luck is the only reason I'm not dead," Siesta scoffed, crossing her arms. As she finished saying that, Louise appeared in the doorway. Siesta's attention was immediately drawn to the guns in her hands. Louise approached her, holding out the G3A3 for her to take.

"Do you want this one?"

"Hell yes I do!" Siesta said excitedly, accepting the dirty rifle into her hands. "Where did you get a freakin' G3? This is awesome!"

Louise shrugged as Siesta promptly got to work at disassembling the weapon. "It was in the mud."

The pinkette placed the satchel on the desk, along with the two Kalashnikovs that were on her person. Unlocking the magazine and clearing the AKS-74U, she then decided that she was going to keep the synthetic AK instead.

"Do either of you want this?" Louise asked, holding up the short barreled rifle. Kirche simply shook her head, satisfied with her own AKM, while Siesta raised an eyebrow.

"You're gonna get rid of it?"

Louise nodded, switching to the AK-74 and aiming the sight at the wall. "I like this one better."

Siesta stared for a moment before she shrugged. "It does look cool next to your scars. Sell the other one to Owl."

The pinkette rolled her eyes, her hand diving into the satchel and extracting the steel colored P226. She locked the slide reward, observing the innards for a moment before letting it snap forward. She placed it on the desk, and then did the same with her Makarov, being sure the weapons were empty and the barrels were not pointed towards Kirche. She extracted the Ruger, releasing the swing out cylinder and ejected the live and unfired rounds.

Louise heard Kirche scoff from across the desk. "Do you have any more hidden somewhere?"

"I'm only keeping these," Louise stated, pointing to the Ruger and the Sig Sauer. She removed the Makarov's holster from her belt, and placed its magazines on the table. "Keep the Makarov. You don't have a pistol, right?"

Kirche shrugged, taking the Makarov up in her hands and examining it. "I think it's kind of cute."

Siesta snorted as she removed the trigger pack from the G3, while Louise just eyed the Germanian weirdly. Forgetting Kirche's comment, Louise lifted the pistols from the table and made for the door.

"Where are you going?" Siesta asked curiously.

Louise held up the guns. "I need somewhere to put these, and I need magazines. I'm going to see what Owl has."

"Cool," Siesta nodded. "Pick up a bunch of three-oh-eight while you're there. Oh! And don't forget that the nine-millimeter that Sig uses is different than the nine-millimeter in the Makarov."

"Yes, yes," Louise replied, turning and walking across the hall.

"Kirche, could you bring me the gun cleaning kit?" Siesta asked, peering through the receiver and down the G3's bore.

Nodding, Kirche reached underneath the desk where Louise's backpack currently resided and produced a compact cleaning kit.

"Is it dirty?" Kirche asked, moving over to the bed and dropping the kit on its surface.

Siesta nodded. "Lots of mud in the bore."

Louise re-entered the room, the Sig clearly holstered on her thigh while the revolver was nowhere to be seen. She cradled boxes of ammunition in her arms, dropping a fair amount on Siesta's bed.

"I'm absolutely starving," Louise commented, placing boxes of nine-millimeter ammunition and newly acquired P226 magazines on the desk. She opened the first box and got to work at loading her magazines.

Siesta nodded in agreement. "I think it's just about breakfast time. There's probably some flesh left over from yesterday, Kirche you should check with Beard."

The Germanian shuddered, the mutant clearly pictured in her mind.

"I haven't told you all about my vegetarianism yet, have I?"

Siesta laughed in response, while Louise playfully rolled her eyes.

* * *

 _A/N: Not much to say about this one. Louise upgrades her arsenal, Siesta gets a battle rifle, and Kirche's hair remains the color red. We'll be visiting Montmorency, Tabitha, and even Alexander in the next few chapters. I also know some of you are wondering about Guiche and the others, and don't worry, they'll make their appearances as well._

 _Anyway, until next time._


	14. The Life of a Stalker III

_The Life of a Stalker III_

 _Rostok_

 _09:23_

Tabitha paused for a moment, wary of the structures ahead of her.

The road was leading her straight into the strangest collection of masonry and steel that she had ever seen. Her stomach growled, and her hunger made itself known once again. Having been walking throughout the night, Tabitha was tired and was now itching for something to eat. She continued forward, allowing the buildings to loom over her on either side.

A rusted truck sat derelict along the side of the road, sitting in an awkward looking stance. To Tabitha, it looked like the thing was supposed to roll on wheels, but at the same time it didn't look like it was meant to be pulled by an animal. As she continued past the vehicle, she heard something drifting through the air that sounded like a ghostly howl. Her hands tightened on her staff as she pressed forward, and then she realized something.

It was music. The ghostly howl was music, coming from somewhere within this unwelcoming labyrinth. It wasn't like any music she had ever heard before, but there was no mistaking it.

Walking underneath an overhead pipe spanning the distance between two buildings, she had come to a four way intersection. Straight ahead, the road seemed to be blocked by a large gate, but it was nothing she couldn't easily bypass. The right appeared to have been hastily barricaded with planks of wood and sheets of metal, which could also be easily bypassed, and then to the left...

She froze, her eyes settling on the three men staring back at her.

Sandbags were set up on either side of the road, leaving a narrow path through the middle. The men, dressed in black and red, belonged to Duty.

Gopher pressed the stock of his RPK into his shoulder, resting the bipod legs on the sandbags, while behind the other set of sandbags Edik Screw flicked off the safety on his Groza. Standing between the sandbags, Grishko paused with a cigarette poised at his lips.

The three men eyed each other, before Gopher spoke up first.

"Guys, is that a little girl or something? She's just standing there staring at us!"

Edik Screw shuddered, creeped out by Tabitha's piercing stare. "This is like one of those shitty horror movies. Grishko, what are we doing?"

Grishko shrugged, finally taking a drag from his burning cigarette. "If she wants to come in, she can come in. Just as long as she doesn't cause any trouble."

Time seemed to pass painfully slow as the three men and single girl engaged in a staring contest. Tabitha, not familiar with the weapons the men were holding, knew well enough that they were weapons nonetheless. This situation needed to be treated with caution.

Quickly, Grishko's patience ran out and he called out to Tabitha.

"Hey! Are you coming in, or are you just going to fucking stand there?"

It took less than an instant for Tabitha to realize she hadn't understood a thing that had come out of that man's mouth. She knew she very well could remedy that with a spell, but she felt the movement of her staff during a chant might be taken as a hostile move. So, she turned on her heel and began walking back the way she came.

Grishko, Gopher, and Edik Screw all stared after Tabitha in confusion, thoroughly baffled by what they had just witnessed.

Edik Screw relaxed his grip on the Groza, turning to Grishko. "So... that actually happened right? Like, I haven't just lost my shit or something, huh?"

Grishko sighed, throwing his cigarette down and stamping it out. This wasn't exactly what he was expecting to happen during his shift at Rostok's northern checkpoint. "Yeap. I think that's enough weird for me today."

Despite having simply turned away, Tabitha had no intention of actually leaving the area. Those men were there for a reason, she knew. Combined with the sounds of music drifting through the air, she deduced that there must be more people inside. More people, meant food. She really wanted food.

She didn't know if those men would have turned hostile or not, but the tone in which the man had called out to her in was certainly less than friendly. Even if she were allowed entrance to whatever this place was, she doubted she would be getting anything for free.

She was just going to sneak in and steal what she needed.

It wasn't a very noble thing to do, and she was well aware of that, but the Gallian native hadn't considered herself much of a Noble for a long time now. Besides, she was sure these people wouldn't miss a few scraps of food.

Not far back from the intersection, Tabitha tuned right into a small grassy area. She momentarily took note of a cross sticking out of the ground with a gasmask hanging from the top before she turned her attention to what lay before her. A tall concrete wall, topped with angry looking razor wire. Not far beyond that, a windowless grey building loomed.

Waving her staff, Tabitha's feet lifted off the ground and she silently floated over the wall. She watched the three men on the road below, ready to disappear if one of them happened to glance up in her direction. She reached the roof of the building quickly and gently touched down. From here, she had a much grander view of the massive industrial maze that was the Rostok factory. Listening as the music echoed through the labyrinth of concrete and steel, Tabitha took it all in for a few moments. It was certainly a place she had never seen the likes of before.

She began moving across the flat rooftop, unwilling to dilly dally anymore.

Scanning, she found a building that looked remarkably like a bell tower, only with no bell. Instead, a massive metal tank was situated in the top, caged in by deteriorating wooden planks. Presently, the water tower was much too far away to simply levitate towards. Somebody would see easily her floating through the air over such a distance. She opted for something a little closer.

Stepping off the edge of the roof Tabitha levitated silently through the air, moving straight over to the roof of a building with massive transformers sitting in a yard below. She strode across the metal roofing after touching down, unaware that during another time the place would have been buzzing with high-voltage electricity.

From this roof she could see the activity around the base of the water tower, although there didn't seem to be much going on. Occasionally a person or two would pass through the area, while others opted to simply loiter about. She again spied more strange attire, and even stranger weapons. They must be firearms of some sort, that was her assumption, but she could only imagine at the reasons for the way they looked.

Her eyes fell on two people loitering near the base of the tower, next to the entrance of another building. One of them sat high up on two wooden crates stacked on top of each other, while the other leaned against the wall. The man sitting on the crate moved to his feet, rummaging through a backpack against the wall nearby. Waving her staff and chanting quietly, the area around the two men became drastically magnified, almost as if she were looking through a spyglass. The man rummaging through the backpack produced a small object and began to unwrap it, pausing partway through as he spoke to the other man. Tabitha could easily see that it was a sandwich.

Her stomach growled furiously at the sight of the edible object. It felt like ages since she had a decent meal. Being doubly sure that nobody was looking in her direction, Tabitha waved her staff and lifted off from the roof towards the water tower.

"And so when we get in there, everybody waiting for us was dead," Oleg 'Fiend' Gusarov was saying, recounting a tale to another stalker. "All of his buddies had been standing in front of him, while he stood behind and blew them all away." Oleg placed his half unwrapped sandwich down on the crates to gesture a motion of firing full automatic from the hip.

"He killed his friends? Did he just tag along to try and screw everyone over, or?" The other stalker commented.

Oleg shrugged, unaware that his sandwich was gracefully floating up into the sky. "He was dead too, so at the time we thought that one of the others managed to get a shot on him. We all got freaked out and left pretty quick, but later we heard from another group that they found a controller hiding out down there."

"A freaking controller? No way."

"It's true," Oleg assured, reaching back for his sandwich. "Just ask - what the...?"

The other stalker curiously tried to get a look around Oleg. "What? What is it?"

Oleg scratched his head, thoroughly confused. "Where did my sandwich go?"

Poking out from the circular window partway down the face of the water tower, Tabitha guided Oleg's sandwich into her waiting hand. She immediately ducked back inside, tearing at the wrapping before taking a generous bite.

It wasn't half bad.

* * *

Alarmingly nearby, in the 100 Rads bar, Montmorency sat at a table across from Drifter with her face resting on a hand, while the other half-heartedly swirled a nearly empty can of soda. Having finished her greasy breakfast, she looked to Drifter, who was still busy digging in.

He took notice of her gaze and paused. "What's with you?"

Montmorency downed the rest of the soda before leaning forward. "Nothing. Just thinking."

Drifter shrugged, quickly returning to his food.

Silence filled the space between them as Montmorency began paying more attention to the television by the bar than anything else. Having arrived in Rostok the night before with a delivery from Sidorovich to Barkeep, they had opted to spend the night within the relative safety of the factory instead of heading back to the Cordon in the dark. Her hand twitched to grab at her can of soda on the table, but she quickly remembered it was empty. She sighed.

"So, um, hypothetically speaking," Montmorency began. The only sign that Drifter was even listening was his eyes flicking upward for a fraction of a second. "If it's true that Siesta actually went into the center of the Zone, she might actually still be there, right?"

Drifter sighed, the wooden chair creaking as he leaned back and crossed his arms. "This again? Monty, seriously, just because Barkeep said she might have done it doesn't mean she actually did."

"Yes, I know, I know," the blonde bit her lip, looking away. "But I..." Her eyes went back to the dark-haired man across from her. "You don't understand. If there's somebody else like me here, I need to find them. What if she knows something that I don't? She might have answers."

"And what if she doesn't?" Drifter countered.

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."

Drifter furrowed his brow. "So you're just going to waltz through the barrier looking for somebody that might not even be alive?"

Montmorency sighed, slumping in her chair. "Why is it that nobody has any hope left anymore?"

"Because we're here. How do you even have any?"

The Tristainian leaned her head back, thinking of the things she'd done to survive during her time as a stalker. "I honestly have no idea."

"Montmorency," Drifter began, using her full name. "Just where exactly did you come from? What was on the other side of that green... thing?"

"I already told you that you'd never believe it in a million years."

Drifter grunted, shaking his head. He returned to his cooling food.

Feeling thoroughly disheartened, Montmorency knew that with her limited experience she'd never make it in a place that was rumored to be as dangerous as the center of the Zone, but she honestly didn't know how it could be any more dangerous than the places she had already been. She hoped that rumors were just rumors.

She definitely didn't plan on asking Drifter or the others to go with her. If they were hurt or killed just because of something she wanted, she'd never be able to live with it.

Over Drifter's shoulder, Montmorency spied a familiar stalker approaching.

"Barkeep says he'll have the return package for Sidorovich ready soon," Hound announced, sliding into a vacant chair. Eyeing the two stalkers, Hound sighed through his nose as he ran a hand through his tawny hair. "What's up with you guys?"

"Nothing, nothing," Montmorency breathed, noticing that Drifter didn't seem inclined to respond.

Hound turned his gaze to Drifter, who shrugged. "Just more Siesta talk."

Hound rolled his eyes. "Siesta this, Siesta that. Don't you teenaged girls have better things to talk about?"

Montmorency huffed. "Like what?"

"Well I don't know, I'm not a freaking teenaged girl now am I?" Hound laughed, reaching into his coat for a pack of cigarettes. "My little sister man, she used to always talk about stupid shit like make-up, pop stars, all sorts of crap. Used to drive me nuts."

"Has it occurred to you that I'm not a normal teenaged girl?" The blonde asked snappily.

Hound only laughed at her response as he lit a cigarette, while Drifter seemed to realize something.

"Wait, so you and Wolf have a sister?"

"We do," Hound nodded.

"How old is she now?" Drifter asked curiously.

Hound pointed dangerously, seeing the smirk on the other stalker's face. "Fuck off Drifter. I'll kick your ass."

Drifter laughed, while Hound turned back to Montmorency.

"So why are you so interested in Siesta?" Hound asked. "Is it just because she's another girl?"

"Because she came here the same way I did. Didn't you know?"

"That's just rumors, are you really buying into that shit?"

Montmorency frowned. "Weren't you there when I showed up? Isn't that a little proof?"

"I was," Hound said, shrugging. "But I don't believe half the shit that comes out of Sidorovich's mouth. He was the only one who claimed to see Siesta drop out of some big green circle. I think having a mountain of artifacts lying around in his bunker messed with his friggin' head."

Drifter scoffed, drawing Hound's attention. "Oh come on, don't tell me you're buying that crap too."

"Why wouldn't I?" Drifter replied. He motioned to the girl across from him. "I think that's enough proof right there. I mean, crazy stuff happens in the Zone all the time, right?"

"How long have you been around anyway?" Montmorency asked, narrowing her eyes at Hound as he grunted in disapproval.

"Just about as long as Drifter has," Hound explained, surprised in the change of subject. "Since last summer, so about a year. Why?"

"I hoped you'd know something more about Siesta," Montmorency admitted easily. "But I suppose you don't then."

Hound snorted, while Drifter rolled his eyes. "Why haven't you asked Sidorovich? I'm sure he'll tell you loads of stuff you'd like to hear."

The blonde crossed her arms. "Contrary to what you might believe, I am not among the people who like that old man."

Drifter started laughing. "Wait, there's people who actually like Sidorovich? I didn't know that."

Hound joined him in a brief session of laughter, before Drifter spoke again.

"So did Clumsy talk to you after about Wolf?"

Hound nodded an affirmative, having heard the news about his brother. "Yeah, but there's no way to know if that's true or not, it's not like he's a reliable source of information, especially after what he was doing with Vampire and his guys in the Dark Valley."

"That's true," Drifter agreed.

Curious on a few of the things the two men had just mentioned, Montmorency decided to address the obvious first. "What did they do in the Dark Valley?"

Drifter scoffed. "Vampire had a small camp in the southern part of the Dark Valley. Those guys were pretty down on their luck, so they liked to screw over anybody that came by. One of the things they'd do is pretend to be selling a really nice gun for cheap, so anybody that actually bought into it had their money stolen and were told to piss off or they'd get blasted."

Montmorency shook her head in distaste, feeling that was only another thing to add to the list of reasons of why she didn't like Clumsy. She had to wonder through, why wasn't he still in the Dark Valley with Vampire? Did something happen for him to leave and come to the rookie village?

Seeing Montmorency's expression as she rested her head in a hand, Drifter sighed. "You seriously can't get that Siesta business out of you head, huh?"

"No, I cannot," the blonde confirmed. "I really do plan on going to find her. I also want to look around this 'barrier' place soon to see if anybody knows anything."

"Well if you plan on visiting the barrier today, you're on your own," Drifter said, drinking from his own can of soda. "I've got to make that delivery back to Sidorovich."

Hound nodded. "There's no way I'm ever going past the barrier again. I went into the Red Forest as far as the bridge to Limansk once, and that's as far as I'll ever go."

Montmorency abruptly stood up, surprising the two men. "I planned on going alone."

They eyed her evenly for a moment, before Hound spoke first. "Really, Monty?"

The blonde sighed, visibly deflating. "No, not really." She grabbed up her Simonov carbine. "I'm going to go get some air, I won't be long."

The two men grunted in acknowledgement as she left the table, both offering similar waves.

Leaving the 100 Rads bar, Montmorency aimlessly wandered past Arnie's Arena and began making her way along the lengthy building. As she approached the end, she heard the sounds of a rather heated exchange taking place nearby. Continuing, she found that a small group of men had gathered outside the back entrance to the Arena: two free stalkers and a handful of Dutyers who appeared to be keeping the men separated.

"Seriously Oleg, you better fucking lay off or you're gonna get thrown out on your ass!" One of the Dutyers barked in the man's face, which only seemed to anger him further.

"I just want him to admit he took it!" Oleg shot back, looking like he was ready to charge straight through the Duty stalker in front of him. Two more Dutyers stood on either side of Oleg, but looked reluctant to actually put their hands on him. Instead, they stood nervously with their weapons half-raised.

"I didn't take the damn sandwich!" The other free stalker shouted, struggling against the grip of two Dutyers with bruises forming on his face and his nose bloody. "You were looking right at me! How could I have taken it!?"

The group of men continued to shout back and forth, while Montmorency rolled her eyes and continued on her way, unable to believe that their argument had reached such a point because of a missing sandwich. She supposed that out in the middle of the Zone if somebody had stolen her sandwich or if she had misplaced it, she'd be rather peeved, but not here in Rostok. It was easy enough to get another.

She opted to find an area where she could get some peace and quiet in order to collect her thoughts, although the loudspeakers blaring music would make such a thing difficult where ever she went in Rostok. At first the blonde had found the music to be absolutely grating on her ears, but she was quickly growing used to it and was almost to the point of actually enjoying some of it.

Heading away from Arnie's Arena, Montmorency took the path less traveled through a narrow gap between two large

concrete buildings. On the other side, she found herself in a small yard amongst a trio of large metal tanks. Walking underneath a section of catwalk she advanced into the yard, intent on finding where the catwalk began. The grated steel pathways snaked up around the tanks, going around the tops of them before ending in a doorway halfway up the face of one of the nearby buildings.

Montmorency easily found the foot of the catwalk and eased her bottom down onto the stairs with a sigh.

Montmorency honestly didn't know what to do now. She still longed to find this Siesta person to glean any knowledge she could from her, but she knew Drifter was trying to dissuade her for a good reason; he simply didn't want her to go and get herself killed. She knew Siesta may not even be alive at this point, which would make a search for her pointless. It was perfectly normal for somebody to go out in the morning and disappear without a trace in the Zone, so it was likely that the same could have happened to Siesta. If Siesta were actually still alive somewhere, Montmorency knew that she might not know any more than she did, which would also make searching for her rather pointless.

So it was just pointless then.

Montmorency groaned in self-inflicted frustration, idly stomping the butt of her SKS against the ground a few times. What if Siesta knew something, some kind of big secret? It was unlikely, but Montmorency found herself holding onto some vain hope that Siesta could tell her something that would magically make everything make sense. The blonde sighed, having been going through the same thought cycle far too many times since she'd learned about Siesta's existence.

Perking up, Montmorency heard two footsteps on the catwalk at the top of the stairs behind her, which struck her as strange since she hadn't heard anybody approaching. Realizing that she must be sitting in the way of anybody trying to reach the ground, she quickly stood.

"Oh, sorry," Montmorency began, twisting to look over her shoulder at whoever was at the top of the section of stairs. "Am I in your wa-AAHH!" Her eyes went wide when her feet became entangled in themselves as she tried to whirl around, causing her to end up on the ground in an undignified heap.

Standing at the top of the stairs, staff in one hand and half-eaten sandwich in the other, Tabitha stared down at Montmorency with a look of mild shock on her face. The blonde shot back to her feet in an instant, leaving her Simonov on the ground.

"T-Tabitha!?"

The blue-haired girl's hand slowly crept up to her mouth, while Montmorency watched in a state of shock.

Tabitha took a bite out of the sandwich.

* * *

Alexander arched his back for what felt like the millionth time, trying to work out some unknown kink. He wondered if it was only because he had slept weird, or if his backpack's weight was finally taking its toll on him.

The road ahead of him seemed to stretch out to the horizon, but he knew he'd reach his destination soon enough. The massive shape of the Jupiter Plant loomed against the skyline, and he only hoped that the bandits didn't have it locked down as bad as he had been told at Yanov station.

He had left the marshlands of Zaton not long after he and Grouse had found out the strange truth regarding Siesta and her friends. Initially, they had thought Siesta was just bullshitting them or maybe she had gotten way too drunk and didn't know what she was saying. When both Kirche and Louise had suddenly started speaking to them in perfect Ukrainian, they had gotten a little weirded out, and then afterward when Kirche had begun levitating objects and creating fire from nowhere, they had both moved on from being weirded out to being thoroughly freaked out.

Mages, from a completely different world, brought to the Zone by God knows what. Alexander didn't know if he should laugh at the idea or not. Whether their story was true, or if they were just mutants born from the Zone itself, Alexander decided that it didn't matter. To him, they seemed like decent people who were only trying to survive in the Zone like everybody else, so that was all that mattered.

The fact that the three girls had willingly revealed their secret to him made Alexander feel a little guilty that he hadn't done the same. Every stalker had their reasons for coming to the Zone, and usually people came of their own accord, ignorant of the true horrors that lay beyond the military's cordon. However, every so often, somebody was forced into the Zone against their will, like Siesta and her friends.

There were only a handful of people in the Zone like Alexander, working as a stalker in the interests of the Security Service of Ukraine.

The biggest reason the SBU inserted agents into the Zone was to simply keep an eye on things, mostly within the militant factions of Duty and Freedom, but there were also agents whose objective was to mingle with the free stalkers. Alexander knew only a few existed, but he had no idea who they were. Undercover stalkers were rarely known to each other, only when their objectives necessitated it.

Of course, Major Alexander Degtyarev knew of the dangers before he had accepted his newest assignment. He had held an interest in the Zone of Alienation since its creation, and had operated within its boundaries before.

Currently, his objective was a little different than the things he had done before.

Not long after the deactivation of the famed Brain Scorcher, the military had devised a plan to invade the Chernobyl NPP and take it from the xenophobic religious cult known as the Monolith. This had been dubbed Operation Fairway, and it had been a fantastic failure.

Five state of the art Mi-24 Hind gunships with crews comprised of Spetsnaz and military stalkers had been sent to establish a foothold within the NPP before a full-scale attack force would be sent in. They had been using advanced radar technology and maps of anomaly fields to navigate through the Zone, but despite this, none of them returned. It was Alexander's mission to investigate the reason for this complete failure, and thus far he hadn't been able to find a single consistent reason for why all five helicopters had crashed.

The helicopters, all under the callsign 'Stingray', had crashed in various locations around Zaton and the area surrounding the Jupiter Plant. Stingray's Two, Three, and Five had all crashed in Zaton, while Stingray's One and Four were both located close to the Jupiter Plant. Stingray Four was his current objective, which supposedly had crashed within the Jupiter Plant itself. He was hoping it would provide some answers.

However, the thing he found himself staring at in the middle of the road had him momentarily forgetting his mission entirely. A glowing green oval, roughly two meters tall and one meter wide, floated just above the road surface.

Alexander rubbed at his eyes before he clutched his AK-74M warily. He suddenly remembered something that Siesta had told him.

 _"I was working at the Academy one night, when I came across a big green oval floating in the air. I was dumb and got curious so I went and touched it. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a friggin' tree."_

The undercover stalker bit at his lip.

 _Shit._

Could what Siesta had said actually been true? She had mentioned a big green oval, and this was a big green oval if he had ever seen one. Was somebody going to pop out of this thing or something? Reaching into a pouch on his belt, Alexander threw a bolt into the thing.

Nothing happened. In fact, he could clearly hear the bolt ring against the pavement on the other side.

He deflated a little, having almost expected something of epic proportions to occur. He threw another, and then one more, getting similar results. He stared into the oval for a few moments, and shuddered. It was almost as if this thing knew he was walking here, and had been waiting for him to come by so it could appear.

Alexander decided it would be best just to leave the thing be. If Siesta's story had any shred of truth to it, this thing could eat him up and spit him out literally anywhere, like the middle of a desert somewhere, or at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Giving the oval a wide berth, Alexander walked around with the intent to continue on his way. He bent down on the other side of the oval and picked up the bolts he had thrown through. There was no point in simply leaving them there if they could so easily be retrieved.

In an instant, Alexander wished he had just forgotten about the bolts, because he suddenly found his feet out from under him and his face smashing into the pavement. He quickly rolled over onto his back, finding that the oval wasn't taking no for an answer. The thing had literally reached out and grabbed him around his ankle.

"What the fuck!?" Alexander cried out in shock. His hands desperately shot out, clumsily grabbing his fallen Kalashnikov by the stock. He intended to send a hail of lead into the thing in an attempt to remedy the situation, but he simply had no time.

Alexander Degtyarev was gone.

* * *

The evening sun hung low in the sky, casting orange shafts through the dense forest.

A long figure walked along a twisting path. Though the weather was warm, the person had opted to cover their body with a dark hooded cloak. Two slender hands gingerly held onto a covered woven basket, filled with goods purchased during the day.

Casting a few glances in various directions to be sure nobody was around, the person left the main path, turning onto a much narrower and not so obvious trail that curved along the bottom of a steep bank. Things seemed to be going normally. The forest was peaceful, and home was getting closer with each step.

The sound of snapping twigs came from above, and the figure froze. Gazing up the bank, they caught only a flash of green light before their eyes settled on something tumbling down through the brush.

Coming to a rest in the middle of the path, the distinct shape of a man sat in a heap. Staring, the figure jumped and inhaled sharply as an object tumbled down the bank moments after the man. The strange object, which looked rather worryingly like a gun, balanced on its butt for a second before clattering to the ground.

The cloaked person slowly bent to place the basket on the ground, not taking their eyes off of the person. A hand went inside the cloak, and slowly, a wand came out. The figure inched closer, the wand shakily trained on the body.

"E-Excuse me," the figure squeaked out in a feminine voice, scared that the man was simply pretending to be unconscious. He was face down, and from what she could see he looked a bit of a mess. "H-Hello?" She stretched a leg out, tenderly prodding the man's arm before leaping back a few paces. He didn't react.

Keeping her wand pointed at the man below, the girl grunted as she rolled him over onto his back with her free hand. She gasped, seeing his face. He definitely looked like he'd seen better days, but he breathing. Whoever this person was, she knew he needed help.

She knew she wouldn't be able to lift a full grown man, and she didn't know much in the way of magic, only a spell her mother taught her which wouldn't be any help in this kind of situation. Her eyes went to a ring on her hand, to the unconscious man, to the ring again. Biting her lip, she sprinted back to her basket, picked it up, and sprinted right past the man.

She hoped Matilda would know what to do.

* * *

 _A/N: No Siesta, Louise, or Kirche this chapter, and they won't be in the next one either, sorry guys. The next time we see them Siesta is going to be back in action, and the three of them will go about getting themselves in a rather sticky scenario that I have planned._

 _So yeah, Montmorency and Tabitha have been reunited, and Alexander is going to find himself in his own weird situation. I suppose he won't be completing his mission for the SBU anytime soon. Too bad._

 _Until next time._


	15. The Life of a Stalker IV

_The Life of a Stalker IV_

 _Rostok_

 _10:04_

It took Montmorency a few solid moments to get her breathing under control, and when she did, there was only one thing she could say.

"What are you doing here!?"

Tabitha swiftly descended the stairs, any surprise on her face completely gone. She held up the nearly finished sandwich for Montmorency to see. "I was hungry."

"No, no, I mean what are you doing..." Montmorency paused, and then deflated. She bent down to retrieve the fallen SKS from the ground. "Tabitha, did you happen to steal that sandwich?"

Tabitha was silent for a moment, eyeing the weapon in the blonde's hands evenly before finishing off the last few bites. "Yes."

Montmorency let the Simonov hang in one hand as she pinched the bridge of her nose for a few seconds. She decided to forget the sandwich altogether with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Right, well, whatever, that's not really important right now. Come here."

Tabitha stiffened as Montmorency drew her into a one armed hug. The blue-haired girl lightly returned the gesture.

"By the Founder, Tabitha. I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Montmorency breathed, tightening her hug for a few moments before releasing the girl. "It's seriously good to see you, but what are the odds of you just stumbling into me here? That's just blind luck."

Tabitha cocked her head. "I saw you."

"From where?"

"Up high," Tabitha explained simply, gesturing upward with her staff.

Montmorency slung the SKS onto her back before leaning onto the support structure surrounding one of the tanks, rubbing her face tiredly. "So how long have you been here?" Tabitha tilted her head questioningly again, and Montmorency knew the girl well enough to know she wanted her to be more specific. "Like, when did you wake up?"

Tabitha's eyes flicked away from Montmorency for a moment, before quickly returning. "Last night."

"My God," the blonde breathed. "So you've just gotten here?"

Tabitha gestured towards Montmorency with her staff. "How long?" She asked.

Montmorency had to think for a moment, counting off on her fingers. "I believe this is day twenty-one."

"Can't be."

"How can't it?" Montmorency asked, furrowing her brow. "I've been keeping track."

"You've only been gone for nine days."

The blonde froze, staring at Tabitha with her mouth slightly agape. "What? No, that's impossible. I would know if I had only been here for nine days instead of twenty-one. I'd know!"

Tabitha was silent, contemplating the meaning in such a difference in time before she asked a question that had just quickly sprung to mind. "Kirche?"

Montmorency eyed the shorter girl weirdly. "Kirche? What about..." She paused, realization kicking in. "She's gone too, isn't she?"

Tabitha nodded.

"I haven't seen her," Montmorency said, feeling uneasy. "If she's here, she could be anywhere, Tabitha. The Zone is a pretty big place."

"The Zone?"

"Well... you've seen the moon, haven't you?" the blonde asked, emphasizing the singularity of the word.

Tabitha nodded again, this time much more slowly.

Montmorency heaved a deep sigh. "You may want to sit down for this. You're not going to like it."

* * *

Alexander Degtyarev woke up, feeling like he had been hit by a brick wall and then thrown off a bridge.

He cracked his eyes open with a groan, using a hand to shield them against the piercing daylight that made the throbbing inside his head so much worse. He immediately became aware of the fact that he wasn't on the ground somewhere. He was in a bed, a very comfortable bed at that. Resisting the urge to simply go back to sleep, he turned his head against the pillow and took stock of his surroundings. The room he was in wasn't large, but it wasn't exactly cramped either. The bed he was in was next to a window, allowing the sun to beam right down onto his face. Next to the bed was a small end table, with a gas lamp sitting on its surface, and a chair next to that. A bookshelf sat a few feet away from the foot of the bed against a wall, and other than the door and an old portrait of a vase of flowers, that was about it for furnishings.

Confused, he wondered what he was doing in a bed inside somebody's log cabin.

The last thing he remembered was walking along a road, heading for the Jupiter Plant to investigate the crash site of Stingray Four. That was it. Anything after that was a big blank. He quietly groaned in pain. His head seriously hurt.

Panic bubbled up inside him for a moment, but he quickly realized he was already off to a good start. Somebody had taken the time and energy to put him in a nice bed instead of just blowing his brains out and taking all of his stuff. Looking around, he found most of his clothing had been neatly folded and placed on the chair and his backpack was nearby leaning against the wall, there was only one thing missing: his weapons. Slightly troubling, but he understood. Whoever put him here probably didn't want him to wake up and massacre them in the middle of the night.

His nose suddenly felt a little off, so he brought a hand up to scratch it and immediately took it away with a hiss of pain. His nose was bandaged, and as he tenderly prodded at it again, he discovered it was broken. He grunted into a sitting position and pulled the covers off of himself. He was only in the t-shirt he wore underneath all of his stalker garb, and his shorts. His eyes immediately went to his ankle, and he winced as he rolled the joint slightly. It was swollen and bruised, definitely sprained although it didn't seem to be too bad, but he doubted he would be going for a run anytime soon.

He swung his legs off the bed, testing his foot on the floor in a sitting position. He bit his lip, suppressing an obscenity at the pain. It hurt a lot, but he'd definitely had worse.

He glanced over his shoulder out the window, seeing dense forest outside. Just where had he ended up?

Alexander froze, hearing footsteps outside the door. He quickly glanced around for anything he could use as a weapon in the event of hostility, finding that the gas lamp was his best bet, or maybe the chair.

The door cracked open a few inches and then it swung open completely to reveal a woman. Her boots clopped against the wooden floor as she entered the room and closed the door behind her, while Alexander became painfully aware of the fact that he was just sitting there in his shorts. His eyes were drawn to her hair, bright green in color, and done up in a ponytail. She wore a set of blue robes that ended mid-calf, with a black cloak draped around her shoulders that nearly reached the floor. Her hazelnut eyes bore into him over a pair of glasses as she looked him up and down. Crossing her arms, she leaned her back onto the door.

"So you're awake," the woman stated, surprising Alexander. That definitely wasn't Ukrainian, it was English, in an accent that was somewhere between British and Scottish he believed, he wasn't really sure. It was odd to hear somebody speak English, but it wasn't unheard of for English speaking groups of mercenaries to enter the Zone. His experience in the SBU gave him a good enough knowledge of the language, so he believed he could hold an adequate conversation.

"Uh, yes, I am," Alexander said carefully, noticing that the woman seemed to cock an eyebrow at his Ukrainian accent.

The woman studied him again for a moment, giving Alexander the feeling that he was an ant on the wrong end of a magnifying glass. "So what's your name?"

Alexander stared, deciding if he should give his full name or not. People in the Zone tended not to give full names or even their actual names at all. It was obvious that this woman didn't trust him, just by the way she was standing Alexander could tell that she was ready to put him down if he tried anything. He couldn't see any obvious weapon on her person, but he was sure there was one.

Alexander decided to give his full name. "Alexander Ivanovich Degtyarev."

The woman furrowed her brow at his name. It appeared to Alexander that she either disapproved of him giving his entire name, or she just thought his name was weird, which was troubling for the Ukrainian native. His name was definitely not an odd name for somebody in the Zone.

The woman finally decided to respond with her own name. "I'm Matilda."

At that moment, Alexander mentally slapped himself for giving his full name. So this woman really didn't trust him. He couldn't blame her.

"Okay, Matilda," Alexander said. "How long was I out?"

"All of last night and most of today. Its mid-afternoon right now," Matilda answered easily.

Alexander then pointed to his nose. "Did you fix my nose?"

Matilda seemed to snort at the way Alexander referred to the bandages on his nose. "No. Tiffania did that."

Alexander nodded. So this woman and an unseen person named Tiffania must live in this house. He didn't know if Tiffania was a girl or not, but it sounded feminine enough. "I see. I'll be sure to thank her then."

The green-haired woman only shrugged at his implication of thanks, and didn't seem inclined to say anything else, so Alexander continued to speak in the awkward atmosphere.

"So," Alexander began, dragging out the word. "What, uh, happened to me?"

Matilda eyed him suspiciously. "You don't remember?"

The SBU agent shook his head. "The last thing I remember was walking down a road."

"Really?" The woman said, pursing her lips for a moment. "Well, that shouldn't surprise me. Tiffania said it looked like you hit your head pretty hard."

"I hit my head?" Alexander asked. At least that explained the throbbing occurring inside his skull, and that Tiffania was the one who had probably found him.

Matilda nodded. "You fell down a hill in the forest."

"I definitely don't remember that. What was I doing in the forest?" Alexander said. He didn't remember being in any sort of forested area at all. The road from Yanov station did have some trees here and there, but it definitely wasn't a wooded area.

"I couldn't tell you," Matilda shrugged. "I was going to ask you that. People don't usually come out this way."

Alexander nodded in understanding. On the subject of 'out this way', he decided to ask the obvious question. "Where exactly am I?"

"In my house," Matilda stated simply.

Alexander eyed her for a moment, expecting some cheeky smirk to spread across the woman's face, but none came. She stared at him seriously and evenly. Maybe he had just become too used to Siesta's brand of humor to expect something like that. He didn't want to be rude and say something like 'really? No shit', that would just give her a reason to throw him out on his ass. "Okay. Where is your house then?"

"In the woods."

Oh for fuck sakes, Alexander mentally groaned. He couldn't suppress the sigh as he rubbed at his forehead.

"I know what you're thinking," Matilda began, shifting her position against the door. "But I have no reason to trust you."

"Yeah, I kind of got that," Alexander replied, chuckling in slight annoyance. "Anyway, it seems like you've done me a pretty big favor and I know good people are hard to come by, so I'll definitely pay you back."

Matilda's even expression seemed to become graced with a small smile. Alexander just hoped that he was on the way to getting on her good side. He wasn't one to be intimidated by people, but he knew if this woman wanted him dead she was in a good position to do so, it wasn't like he could run. With his training he was confident he could best her in hand- to-hand combat, but it wasn't likely she'd let him even get that close without putting a bullet in him or something.

"We'll see," Matilda said simply, moving to pull open the door. "Are you hungry?"

"Well," Alexander mentally winced, believing that this woman had given him quite enough already. "If it isn't any trouble, I wouldn't mind something."

Matilda nodded. "Tiffania will be back shortly, so it won't be too long. You should get some rest until then."

The green-haired woman swiftly left the room, leaving Alexander alone once again. He moved to lay back on the bed once again, heaving a sigh.

Out of all the women he could meet, it was always the strange ones, first Siesta and her companions, and now this person. What was up with her clothes anyway? Who even wore something like that? He had the strangest feeling in his stomach that something really weird was happening. Or maybe he was just hungry.

He went with hungry.

* * *

"Just when I thought our lives couldn't get any freakin' weirder, this happens," Hound groused, his expression undoubtedly disgruntled behind his gas mask.

Drifter eyed him for a moment from underneath his hood, and glanced over his shoulder at the two girls walking a short ways behind them. To him, the blue-haired girl, wearing some strange get-up and holding onto a crooked wooden pole thing, was definitely a surreal sight. Her clothes were exactly the same as Montmorency had been wearing the night she had come out of the green oval.

Tabitha seemed to catch Drifter's eyes quickly, so the stalker turned back to the road ahead.

"Well, hey," Hound continued, gesturing ahead with his skeleton-stocked LR-300. "Maybe this means Monty's gonna knock it off with all of this Siesta crap. She found some other chick now."

Drifter could practically feel the glare coming towards them from Montmorency. He decided not to look back and check.

The hooded stalker sighed. "You know, I seriously didn't think the Zone could get any more messed up then it already was, but," Drifter cast another look over his shoulder at Tabitha. "Man, something weird is going on."

"No kidding," Hound returned, shaking his head.

The group was slowly making their way through the Garbage, and had already left most of the anomaly rich hills of scrap and radioactive junk behind. Soon, they would be back within the familiarity of the Cordon and the relative safety of the rookie village would be closer. Ahead, an old bus sat perpendicular to the road with most of the windows smashed, not far behind it in a narrow passage between two steep hills was a rusted and tall gate. Beyond the gate was a small compound, walled in by concrete, it only had one single story building inside and a small gatehouse. It had been a checkpoint years before, but now it was just abandoned. It also marked the end of the Garbage, and the beginning of the Cordon.

"But think about this," Hound suddenly commented, drawing Drifter's attention. "How many times have you made it all the way through the Garbage without something or somebody giving you shit or trying to kill you?"

Drifter initially scoffed, but after a moment of thought he realized it was true; it had been a rather uneventful trip through the Garbage for the stalkers. The dogs howled from far off, and the cracks of gunfire were equally far away. Anybody else might have thought it was nice, but it only made Drifter worry.

As they neared the bus, it began to obscure the gate from view.

"Hopefully we'll get through the Cordon without any trouble," Drifter finally added in, his scruffy face itching underneath the cloth covering his mouth and nose.

"I doubt it. I'm pretty sure Major Kuznetsov isn't on duty today, so we're going to have to..." Hound trailed, suddenly holding up a hand to signal the group to halt.

Drifter held his AKM ready, whispering to Hound. "What is it? You see something?"

"I hear something, just listen," Hound hissed back, hearing Montmorency and Tabitha quietly closing the gap between them. They all stood silent, listening intently. A steady rhythmatic sound of something hitting against the pavement came from ahead, beyond the bus, growing closer at an alarming rate. Hound motioned for everybody to move against the side of the bus. They quickly did so, Montmorency, Drifter, and Hound holding their guns ready, while Tabitha gripped her staff.

Montmorency quickly realized that she knew the sound that was approaching

The noise grew closer and everybody tensed, ready to fire on whatever was going to come around the bus. Moments later, it came, and it was just as Montmorency had thought.

It was a horse.

Both Drifter and Hound gawked as the four-legged beast galloped past, seemingly unaware of their presence. It wasn't just a horse, it had an empty saddle, and armor. The two stalkers couldn't tear their eyes away from it. A horse in the Zone was weird enough, but to them a horse with some freaking medieval armor on it was twice as weird.

"Well," Montmorency began, seeing as the men were still fixated on the shape of the shrinking animal. "Um, do you normally have horses here in the Zone?"

Drifter was still in a state of disbelief. "No. No we don't."

"Oh," the blonde stated simply. The horse did seem to be armored, and she had been so used to such things in her previous life that it took her a moment to catch onto the fact that it would be quite out of place here. The colors did seem familiar, and thinking on it she believed it may have been the purple of the Tristainian Mage Knights, but there was no way to be sure. The horse had simply been going too fast.

"Well there's one now, at least," Hound commented, shaking his head in disbelief as the horse disappeared from view around a bend in the road.

"Hound, seriously," Drifter said, his voice going up a few octaves. "That was a freaking horse dude! With like... armor! Like some kind of Knights of the Round Table shit!"

"I kind of noticed," Hound grunted back, finally relaxing his grip on his rifle. He turned to Drifter. "Let's just get back to the village. I've had enough of this shit for one day."

Drifter thoroughly agreed, and the group set off again, rounding the bus and making for the gate.

"This is where the Garbage ends," Montmorency explained to Tabitha in Tristainian as the passed through the gate. She motioned to the area inside the compound. "Sometimes stalkers are around here, but its abandoned most of the time. Remember what I told you about the emissions? This is a good place to take cover if you get caught out around this area."

Tabitha silently nodded. To anyone else it would seem like Tabitha was simply nodding her head at everything Montmorency was saying to her and not actually paying attention, but in reality she was soaking in all of the information she could.

"But that horse," Montmorency continued. "Do you think that it could have come from Halkeginia?"

"Possible."

"It didn't have a rider though," the blonde frowned. The rider could have ended up anywhere. Still back in Halkeginia or maybe even wandering around the Zone somewhere. Maybe they would even run into them in the Cordon, that is, if the dogs didn't get to them first. The blonde continued speaking. "You know, things like that make me wonder what else could be coming through to here."

* * *

Alexander plopped back down onto the bed, letting out a sigh of relief. Putting any weight on his foot was rather painful, and hopping around on one foot was just troublesome, but at least now, with his pants back on, he felt much more

comfortable. The throbbing in his head had dulled pleasantly, which was another good development.

Having completed that short task, Alexander was left to boredom once again. Going back to sleep had turned out to be next to impossible, so he decided against trying that again. He briefly glanced at the bookshelf to see if there was anything worth reading, but most of the books didn't have titles on their spines. His eyes went over the few visible titles, The Queen's Vacation, Advanced Alchemy, A Guide to Transmutation...

 _What?_

Alexander turned away, blinking. A book called 'The Queen's Vacation' wasn't all that odd, but alchemy? Transmutation? What the heck? What kind of books were those? There were even more on similarly odd subjects. He idly began to wonder if this room he was in belonged to somebody else, maybe that strange Matilda woman. He contemplated hopping over to the shelf and browsing through one of the books to see what was inside, but something else caught his attention.

Muffled voices, coming from somewhere within the house.

He could recognize Matilda's voice, but the other female voice was one he hadn't heard before. He didn't even hear any footsteps thumping towards the door before it slowly creaked open. He had expected Matilda, but instead a cloaked figure remained in the doorway for a moment before lightly stepping into the room. The brown cloak nearly reached the floor, and covered the person's entire body. The only thing visible was their face, which Alexander had to admit to himself, was very eye-catching. A slender and young face sat inside the hood, framed by locks of blonde hair with two big and unnaturally bright blue eyes.

The cloaked girl smiled warmly. "Matilda said you might be awake."

Putting aside the desire to ask this girl why she was wearing something like that indoors, Alexander decided on a different subject. "You must be... Tiffania?"

The girl nodded happily, giving no visible reaction to his accent. "Yes, my name is Tiffania Westwood."

"I see," Alexander smiled. "I'm Alexander." He pointed to his nose. "And thank you, for this."

Tiffania waved her hands in front of herself, her warm smile turning bashful. "Oh no, no. You don't need to thank me, it was nothing."

The girl seemed nice enough to Alexander. "So it was you who found me in the woods?"

"Oh, yes," Tiffania confirmed, clasping her hands together underneath her cloak. "You looked like you took a terrible fall."

The SBU agent was silent for a moment, scratching at his stubbly chin. He wondered why this girl would even go through the trouble of helping him. For all she knew, he could have been completely insane and might have tried to murder her the moment he awoke.

"Could you tell me exactly what happened, please?" Alexander asked, deciding against questioning the girl's morals and innocence.

Tiffania frowned. "Matilda said you didn't remember. I was walking through the forest on my way here, and you fell down a hill right in front of me."

Alexander rubbed his forehead tiredly. What on Earth had he been doing in the woods?

"What is it?" Tiffania asked, appearing overly concerned in Alexander's opinion. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No," he said, raising a hand to assure the girl. "I just don't remember being in the forest at all. Last I remember I was walking along a road."

"You must have hit your head really hard," Tiffania said sympathetically. "That's terrible."

What was with this person? She was too nice. "I didn't say or do anything before I fell?" Alexander asked. "Anything could help."

"Well," Tiffania began, unsure of herself. "You didn't say anything. I only noticed you when you were already falling."

"That's it?"

The blonde girl looked embarrassed. "I think it was just my eyes playing tricks, but I thought I saw some green flashes of light."

Alexander furrowed his brow. Green flashes of light? For a few moments, he had no idea what that could have been. Maybe the girl's eyes had indeed been playing tricks on her, or...

The throbbing in his head seemed to return as everything came back all at once.

Walking along the road to the Jupiter Plant, the obnoxious green oval, falling flat on his face when it started sucking him in, he remembered all of it. He also remembered what Siesta had told him, how she had found a green oval and how it had taken her from her home and spat her back out into the middle of the Zone. Where had that thing taken him? He glanced through the window, seeing the forest outside once again.

Could he possibly be in the place that those girls had claimed to have come from? Was that even in the realm of possibility?

"D-Did I actually say something wrong this time?" Tiffania asked worriedly, seeing the extremely troubled expression that Alexander currently wore.

He swallowed. "Where exactly am I right now?"

The girl looked apologetic. "I'm sorry. Matilda doesn't want me to say because she doesn't trust you."

"Even telling me the country I'm in would be enough."

"You don't even know what country you're in?" Tiffania asked, surprise filtering through her voice. "You must have hit your head really really hard. I suppose I can tell you that much. You're in Albion."

Albion? Alexander stared right through the girl in front of him. He couldn't think of anything to say to that. Albion rang a bell, hadn't Louise mentioned a place with that name when she was talking about the world she was from? His stomach plummeted, realizing the implications of what he had just learned.

The SBU wasn't going to hear from him anytime soon, if ever again.

* * *

The smell of roasting boar drifted through the air as Montmorency and Tabitha followed Drifter and Hound past the posted guard at the edge of the village. The two male stalkers began making their way through the village towards Sidorovich's bunker to complete their delivery, while Montmorency wandered over to the fire with Tabitha in tow.

The blonde eyed the roasting boar over the fire for a moment before scanning over the sparse few faces loitering about the area. A few stalkers were tending to the boar, while a few more idly sat around the fire. She saw Tolik nearby leaning against a house, puffing away on a cigarette. He waved her over.

"How'd it go?" Tolik asked as she approached.

Montmorency shrugged. "As well as it could have gone."

Tolik paused, seeing Tabitha approaching. He eyed over her clothing, and her staff. He pointed with his cigarette. "Uh, friend of yours?"

Montmorency glanced at Tabitha for a moment, finding that the blue-haired girl was intently studying the area around her, looking over the people, their equipment, and the layout of the houses.

She turned back to Tolik, nodding. "She is."

"Oh, cool," Tolik commented.

Montmorency nodded again awkwardly, not really having anything else to say. She was about to question where Awl was, when she noticed somebody out of place sitting near the fire. It was Oleg, the man who had been angry over a sandwich in Rostok.

"What's he doing here?" Montmorency asked, gesturing with a flick of her head.

Tolik laughed. "Oleg? Oh man, you'll never guess what happened. Apparently some guy stole his sandwich in Rostok and he got up in the guy's face. Duty ended up kicking them both out. Can you imagine? Kicked out of Rostok over a freaking sandwich!"

Montmorency glanced in the man's direction, but quickly averted her eyes seeing that Oleg was currently directing a mean glare their way. It was only now she realized that Tolik had said that a little loudly, and he seemed to realize that as well as he cleared his throat.

"So, anyway, yeah."

"Yeah."

"We're doing another watch at the car park again tomorrow, you coming?"

Montmorency shrugged. "I don't think so."

"No? Too bad," Tolik said.

The blonde motioned for Tabitha to follow. "I'll talk to you later, Tolik."

Tolik nodded, offering a wave as he took a draw from his cigarette.

Tabitha followed behind Montmorency as she weaved around the fire. On the road going through the center of the village, the blonde noticed Drifter approaching with his hand up in greeting. She stopped, waiting for the man to reach her.

"Here," Drifter said, holding out a small bundle of banknotes. "Your share."

"I already told you that you didn't have to. I was the one who asked to come along."

Drifter rolled his eyes. "Come on, just take it."

"Fine, fine," Montmorency sighed, accepting the bills and stuffing them in her pocket. "Happy?"

Drifter didn't answer. Instead, he gave her a solid pat on the shoulder as he moved past. "See you later, Monty."

Montmorency stared after the man for a few moments. "Let's go," she said to Tabitha in Tristainian.

"Where?"

The blonde shrugged. "Just somewhere nobody will bother us."

Montmorency led them between two run down houses, moving through the overgrowth towards a house that seemed to be in better condition than most around it, if only a little. The water mage pushed the knob-less door open and pushed it closed after Tabitha.

"I sleep in here most of the time," Montmorency stated, moving to a different room. "But not down here, in the attic. That way I'm hidden away."

Tabitha nodded in understanding, watching as Montmorency pulled a chair to the middle of the room and hoisted herself up onto its surface. The wooden structure groaned dangerously under her feet, but it gave her the height she needed to pull down the attic stairs.

The blue-haired girl quirked an eyebrow at the sudden appearance of the staircase while Montmorency returned the chair to its original position at the other end of the room. Tabitha ascended into the attic, standing near the top of the stairs until Montmorency made her way up. The blonde pulled up the stairs, leaving them in darkness. Tabitha listened as Montmorency moved around in the dark, and then suddenly the attic was bathed in a warm light.

Montmorency sat down on the floor a few meters away, setting an electric lantern down in front of her. She unhinged her rifle's magazine floor, letting nine steel cased rounds fall into her hand. After pulling the charging handle reward to eject the chambered round, she set it down on the floor, and then shrugged off her backpack. Tabitha eyed the attic over as she ducked through a roof truss to sit on the other side of the lantern. It was mostly empty, anything of value having been looted long before.

As she sat, Tabitha noticed an old trunk sitting near Montmorency in the space between two roof trusses. It looked like the trunk hadn't seen much attention over the years, but behind it she noticed what appeared to be a bedroll that had been rolled up and stashed.

Montmorency rummaged through her backpack for a moment before she got to work at disassembling her rifle. She eyed Tabitha for a moment as she removed the Simonov's dust cover.

"You seem to be taking this rather well," Montmorency commented.

Tabitha didn't respond, although she had clearly heard what was said. The two girls had known each other long enough to prevent any awkwardness between them due to Tabitha's silent nature. Montmorency was right, she was taking this rather well, but it wasn't like her to visibly make a big deal out of anything. She was only fifteen, but her life had already been filled with more death, danger, and absolute hopelessness than most people would see in an entire lifetime.

If anything, this was an improvement. It kept her farther away from the current ruler of Gallia, her uncle Joseph de Gallia. She was out of his reach now, but it also put her mother out of her own reach. She had been going back to Gallia to keep her mother safe, even if she couldn't recognize her own daughter. Naturally, she wanted a way back.

After removing the recoil spring and guide rod, Montmorency slid the bolt carrier and bolt out of the receiver. Tabitha observed curiously.

"What is that?" Tabitha asked.

"This?" Montmorency asked, referring to her rifle. "This is an SKS."

"SKS?"

The blonde nodded, using the tip of a bullet to help remove the trigger assembly. The magazine quickly came after. "I'm not really sure what 'SKS' is supposed to mean, but it's a semi-automatic rifle."

Montmorency glanced up, seeing Tabitha's blank face yearning for clarification.

She held up the partially disassembled rifle, imitating pulling the trigger. "It can fire every time I pull the trigger. It'll do that ten times before it has to be reloaded."

"Really?"

Montmorency nodded. "Really. I didn't believe it when I was first told, but it will do it."

Tabitha stared as Montmorency removed the gas tube and piston, wasting no time as she promptly began cleaning the weapon. She knew enough about muskets, how they only fired once and had to be reloaded after each shot, but she hadn't ever actually used one. Being that she was a mage, she didn't need to. A gun like Montmorency had just described didn't seem to be physically possible to her, but the blonde had told her already that she was in a completely different world where there was basically no rules to reality, so it really didn't surprise her that much.

In fact, she thought it was rather interesting.

"So," Montmorency began, not looking up from her task. "Do you remember what happened before you woke up?"

Tabitha thought for a moment. It was all muddled and hazy, but she had the distinct feeling she had been in a fight. That would certainly explain the absence of her spare wand. "No. Do you remember?"

Montmorency nodded. "I didn't at first, but I was sitting around the fire one day with the others and it all sort of just came back to me." She paused, thinking of how she was going to explain. "I was in my room at night, I was going to brush my hair out before going to bed, and then I saw this big green oval appear behind me in the mirror. I didn't know why something like that was in my room, so I got scared and decided to just leave. When I opened my door I looked over my shoulder and I saw it disappear, but I decided to leave anyway since it had me nervous. I ended up walking straight into another one right outside my door. I guess it'll just come back to you after a while, it might be different for everybody."

The blue-haired girl was silent, taking in what Montmorency had just told her. It certainly shed some light on what may have happened, but it didn't help her remember.

"We're not the only ones this has happened to, obviously," Montmorency continued. "You said Kirche disappeared as well? How long do you think it was after I disappeared when that happened?"

"Five days," Tabitha responded.

Montmorency paused for a moment, sighing, and then continuing with her task. "Five days then? She could be literally anywhere. God, I hope she's alright."

"Kirche can take care of herself," Tabitha said, an edge of confidence filtering into her normally monotone voice.

The blonde nodded. "I know. I just hope she hadn't bitten off more than she can chew. Seems like something she would do."

Tabitha nodded in agreement.

"But it wasn't just us and Kirche, I know of another person to be taken from Tristain as well."

Tabitha's gaze told Montmorency to continue, so she did.

"About four years ago," Montmorency explained. "A girl named Siesta came here from Tristain in the same way we have. She was a maid, at the Academy. But four years though, doesn't that seem strange to you? It doesn't fit."

"What do you mean?"

"Well you said I've only been gone nine days in Tristain, but it's been twenty-one for me here. That obviously doesn't make sense. There's something going on there."

"All of this began after Louise tried to summon a familiar."

"I know. So what if these green portal things are messing around with time as well. What if Siesta was working at the Academy the same time we were going there, and she was just sent back four years earlier?"

"Far-fetched," Tabitha pointed out.

Montmorency snorted. "Of course it is. I'm just trying to make sense out of things. There's no way to know unless we ask her ourselves."

"Then let's."

"But that's the problem, we can't," Montmorency said, gesturing with the cleaning rod. "Nobody knows where she is. All anybody knows is that she's gone beyond a place called the barrier, into what's apparently a really dangerous part of the Zone."

"The barrier?"

"Yes," the blonde nodded, deciding to begin the process of reassembling her rifle. "Beyond that is the Red Forest, it's near a place called the Army Warehouses. A faction that calls themselves 'Freedom' uses it as their base. I'd like to go there and ask around about her. Maybe even go through the barrier looking for her."

"You want to find her?"

"I do," Montmorency confirmed, snapping the gas tube back in place. "What if she knows something that could help us get back? It's not much to go on, but it's all I've got right now."

Tabitha knew Montmorency was right about one thing, it wasn't much to go on at all. It might not even be worth it, but what else could they do? In her opinion, doing something was better than sitting around and doing nothing at all. Even if it turned out to be pointless, at least they tried. Besides, maybe they could even find Kirche on the way.

"Then let's find her."

Montmorency stopped, eyeing Tabitha seriously. "Are you serious?"

Tabitha nodded.

The blonde was silent for a moment, before nodding more to herself than to Tabitha. "Alright, then we'll go look for her. But not yet."

"Why?"

"Because," Montmorency began, gesturing to Tabitha with a smirk drawing across her face. "We've got a lot to do first."

* * *

 _A/N: And thus ends chapter 4. I'd just like to take a moment to thank all of you who have followed this story so far. I had the idea for this story kicking around for a while, and I decided to post the first chapter when I was bored at work one night. It's definitely not the most popular FoZ story out there, but I think this is a fantastic response to my first posted work._

 _Anyway, until next time._


	16. The Life of a Stalker V

_The Life of a Stalker V_

 _Zaton_

 _05:32_

Louise awoke groggily, cracking her eyes open to stare up into pitch darkness. She prayed that it was still the middle of the night, but the world seemed to be against her. The sounds of morning activity in the other areas of the Skadovsk reached her ears, causing her to scowl darkly up at the barely visible ceiling.

She knew it was about time to get up, but the warmth and meager comfort of the bunk was far too alluring for her to resist, so she opted to ignore the world for a while longer, and closed her eyes.

Somebody turned the light on.

Louise screwed her eyes shut even tighter as the light cast a red hue through her eyelids. She wondered who had turned the lights on, as she hadn't heard Siesta or Kirche get up. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and turned to look at the rest of the room to be met with a rather odd sight.

A pair of blue eyes stared right back at her. The upper half of Siesta's head was easily recognizable as it peeked up over the edge of the bunk. The dark-haired girl's eyes narrowed slightly, and Louise just knew that she was smirking at her.

"Hey there, sleeping beauty."

Louise simply stared back for a few moments, before she slowly began to rise. She made to stretch, but in reality she was only moving to grab her pillow, which she promptly threw at Siesta.

Siesta ducked, laughing all the while. The pillow sailed cleanly over her head, flying across the room to land on the sleeping form of Kirche. The redhead subsequently stirred and slowly rose to a sit. The dark circles under her eyes revealed that her night had been just as bad as Louise's, if not worse.

"Who threw it?" Kirche asked dangerously, holding the pillow in an iron grip.

Siesta quickly pointed to Louise.

"Oh, come on," Louise groaned tiredly. "It was your fault that I-"

She didn't have time to finish. The pillow had already left Kirche's hand, passing through Louise's feeble attempt at a block to collide directly with her face. She swiftly snatched it up as it fell onto her lap, placed it back on the bed, and let her head fall onto it as she turned to face away from the rest of the room. Kirche flopped back down as well, quickly closing her eyes.

Siesta looked to Louise, and then over to Kirche. She let go of the bunk bed's frame, tenderly descending to the floor as to not give her injured leg too much grief. It was especially stiff in the mornings.

"Are you two seriously going back to sleep?" Siesta asked, spreading her arms out in disbelief despite the fact she knew nobody could see it.

"Yes," Louise quickly answered.

"Turn off the light," Kirche replied.

Siesta released a grunt of frustration. "But it's like, twelve. Pretty sure you've both slept in enough."

Kirche shot up, as did Louise, the latter's head connecting solidly with the ceiling. The pinkette slumped back onto the bunk, groaning as she clutched at her head.

"That hurt," Louise ground out. "Bloody hell that hurt." Her face quickly twisted into a scowl when she heard the sounds of Siesta's hearty laughter.

"Is that like, the fifth time you've done that now?" The dark-haired girl asked, still chuckling as she moved to turn the light off.

"I think so," Louise confirmed, propping herself up on an elbow while her other hand still nursed at the forming bump on her head. "Why'd you just turn the lights off?"

"You guys still want to sleep, don't you? I wouldn't mind a little extra either."

Kirche narrowed her eyes. "But you just said it was noon."

"Oh, I lied," Siesta admitted easily, dropping down onto her own bunk. She let out a squeak of pain as he landed on her thigh the wrong way. "It's actually like five-thirty in the morning."

Kirche flopped back down, heaving a ragged sigh that gave off the impression that she was rather peeved. "Honestly? God, Siesta. I could shove my entire sleeping bag down your throat right now if I wasn't so tired."

Siesta snickered. "Come at me with it then."

The redhead opted to merely click her tongue in annoyance. She then realized Louise hadn't seemed to have gotten annoyed at all with Siesta's actions. She craned her head upward, eyeing the bunk. "Louise?"

Siesta raised an eyebrow, and realized as well that Louise was being very quiet. She tried her best to ignore the stiffness in her leg as she stood to peek up at the pinkette.

"She's asleep," Siesta observed.

Kirche let her head fall back, envying how Louise had just been able to simply pass out like that. She closed her eyes, and hoped sleep would quickly retake her.

* * *

Louise hadn't slept in for long. She now sat alone in the bar, trying her best to enjoy her breakfast. Her attention was glued to what was playing on the bar's television as she forked another chunk of boar meat into her mouth. It didn't take long for Kirche to appear. The redhead was still working her hair into a ponytail as she approached the table.

"What have you got?" Kirche asked.

"Boar from last night," Louise replied, not looking away from the television.

"Is there any left?"

Louise nodded slowly. "I think so."

Kirche left for the bar, returning quickly with her own greasy slab of meat and a can of soda. She made to sit down across from Louise, but the pinkette quickly waved her away.

"I won't be able to see the TV," Louise reasoned, causing Kirche to scoff. The Germanian moved the chair and sat adjacent to Louise instead, turning to watch the television as well.

Kirche turned back to her food. "What is that?"

"It's called Jurassic Park," Louise said after swallowing a mouthful.

"You see, I don't like watching things like that," Kirche commented, starting on her own food. She spoke with her mouth full, pointing out an on screen Velociraptor. "I mean look at that thing, it looks so real."

Louise tore her eyes away from the screen to look at Kirche as she spoke, screwing up her face when she saw the Germanian speaking with her mouth full. She didn't quite care anymore that it was rude manners, but she still thought it was a little off-putting.

Louise returned to her food. "I just like the stories. It's like watching a play."

Kirche yawned as she cracked open her can of soda. "I guess. What are we doing today?"

"The usual, I suppose," Louise shrugged. "Unless anything else comes up."

The Skadovsk was rather vacant, most stalkers having already left for the day. Louise watched as Pilot stood up from a table in the corner of the room with a small group. They left, dwindling down the number of stalkers in the bar to Beard, Louise, Kirche, and a man sitting by himself in the corner. The girls continued their meals in silence, the only sounds in the bar coming from the television.

"I never thought I'd miss home so much," Kirche lamented. She saw Louise staring at her as she chewed. "I know you're not the biggest fan of Germania, but, well, I miss it. It's nice this time of year."

Louise swallowed. "After being here, Germania seems like a paradise to me." As Kirche chuckled, Louise continued, pointing her fork towards the Germanian. "I never thought I'd be sitting at a table with you and not feel the need to tear your head off."

Kirche chuckled again. It trailed off, ending in another sigh. She couldn't think of anything else to say, so she turned her attention to her food as Louise turned her own back to the television. Her interaction with Louise prior to their arrival in the Zone was a bit of a sore spot for Kirche, even if she had been the one doing the bullying. She just wished she could take it all back, but there was nothing that could be done about it now.

She put it out of her mind. That issue paled in comparison to the one that was their everyday life.

The Germanian paused with her fork inches from her lips, taking in a sight she had never seen before. Beard had left his usual spot behind the bar, and was strolling across the room towards them.

Louise glanced up at the man as his broad form blocked out the television. "Beard," she greeted.

"Are you two interested in some easy work?" Beard asked, immediately getting down to business.

Kirche and Louise shared a glance, the former shrugging. The pinkette decided to inquire more before getting involved in anything. The last time she had gone out into the Zone to do something 'easy' she and Siesta had run into a lair of bloodsuckers and a pseudogiant in the same day.

"What kind of easy work?" Louise asked in Ukrainian, placing her fork down.

"Well," Beard began. "Pilot's taking a few stalkers into Yanov station today. They were guys working up on deck."

Louise knew that there were always a handful of stalkers patrolling the Skadovsk's deck, keeping watch for any danger at all times of the day. She wasn't sure how they operated, being that she had little to no interaction with any of them, but their jobs didn't seem hard to her.

"I'm just looking for a few shifts to be covered," Beard continued. "The pay isn't as good as selling artifacts, but it's pretty easy, kind of boring though."

Louise and Kirche shared another glance, both feeling that being paid to do something boring here was a godsend.

"Would this be considered our 'anything else that has come up'?" Kirche asked in Tristainian.

The native Tristainian's gaze lingered on the redhead for a moment, before she turned back to Beard. "We can do it. When is it?"

"Five this evening until five in the morning," was Beard's reply.

Louise checked her watch. It was only around seven. "Okay, sounds good."

"Alright," Beard nodded. "Spartacus is the one to report to. You'll find him up on deck."

Louise nodded towards the man as he turned and headed towards the bar.

Kirche sighed. "Five until five? That's twelve hours, Louise," she groused.

"I can do math just fine, Kirche," Louise replied, giving the redheaded stalker a look of discontent. "What? Do you not want to do it? Have you seen what they do up there? They stand around smoking cigarettes all day. It's easy."

"Louise, we don't even smoke."

Louise rolled her eyes. "That's not the point."

Kirche huffed, giving the pink-haired girl a flat look. "Fine, but do you not remember that herd of zombies the other day?"

Hoard was a better word in Louise's mind, but she supposed herd worked just as well. "There's no way that's going to happen twice in the same week. Besides, once we start shooting the entire ship is going to come out on deck."

"I guess so," Kirche grunted, rubbing her forehead. "It's just, five in the evening until five in the morning? Honestly? I'm supposed to sleep somewhere in there."

"So am I, but I hardly ever do," Louise replied. She hoped that being forced to stay up until five in the morning would tire her out to the point where her body would just quit as soon as her head hit the pillow. She craved a decent sleep, and couldn't remember the last time she had one. "If you don't want to do it, that's fine. I'm sure it won't be a big deal."

Kirche shook her head. "No, I'll do it. It's money. We need money to eat, unless you want to start hunting."

"I don't think I'd be much good at that," Louise said flatly, grabbing up her bottle of water and downing the final mouthful. She had unwillingly sat through many of her Father's hunting stories, but now she wished she had actually paid more attention. Maybe she could have learned something from them.

"Me neither."

Louise realized that there was no food left on Kirche's plate.

"Are you finished?" she asked, gesturing towards the empty plate.

Kirche nodded, chugging down the remains of her soda. She made a face as the carbonated beverage tickled at her throat. "I am."

"Okay," Louise said as she stood up and checked her watch again. "I think we've got some time for some anomaly diving, don't you?"

Kirche stood as well, stretching her arms. "I think we can make it work."

"Let's get our things then," Louise said, starting off towards the stairs.

The Germanian followed after her. "What an interesting life we've got now, huh? Have you ever fancied being an adventurer?"

Louise let out a snort of laughter. "Not one bit. What about you?"

"I have, though this isn't quite how I pictured it."

"We're not adventurers, Kirche," Louise scoffed. "We're stalkers."

* * *

"When was the last emission anyway?"

Louise glanced over her shoulder as she walked, eyeing her Germanian comrade from underneath her hood. Only Kirche's eyes were visible on her own hooded head, a strip of red cloth covered her mouth and nose.

"It was last night," Louise said, turning back to the road.

"Really?"

Louise nodded. "It woke me."

They continued on in silence, nearing the small village with the outdoor theater. Both Louise and Kirche kept their respective Kalashnikovs ready, charging boars and frightened fleshes were known to spring forth from the village's woodwork. The road split into a fork in front of the village, the right going past the theater and straight into the houses, while the left rounded the outside of the village. The girls took the road to the left.

Even if the road skirted around the outside of the village, it still took them fairly close. They stayed wary of the buildings to their side.

They heard a noise, like something had just fallen to the floor inside one of the houses. They both froze instantly. Louise, having shouldered her rifle on reflex, slowly turned back to eye Kirche.

"Hear that?" Louise asked, her voice barely a whisper. A pit had already begun to form in her stomach. Kirche nodded slowly.

They continued their advance, moving at a much slower pace than they had before. Walking sideways, Louise peered through the PK-AS sight, sweeping the illuminated reticule over windows, and then the gap between two houses.

A dark shape darted away, rustling withering bushes in its wake. Louise's breath hitched in her throat, only just able to keep from jamming down on the trigger out of fright and emptying her entire magazine into nothing.

"Did you see that?" Kirche whispered, her AKM's stock pressing into her shoulder.

"O-of course I did!" Louise hissed back. She knew of two choices that could be made right now. They could go into the village, kill whatever that was, and then not have to worry about it anymore. Or, they could just leave and continue on their way. If they chose the second option, they could be followed. Louise was never a fan of having the nagging feeling of being watched, but she wasn't about to willingly charge into the village, be ambushed by something horrible, and then end up having her head torn off.

Louise motioned ahead with her rifle. "Let's just go."

They moved ahead warily, still keeping their rifles ready. Kirche kept a keen eye on their rear as they left the village behind. The Germanian sighed nervously.

"I don't like this. We're definitely going to get followed."

"Yeah... probably," Louise replied, biting down on her lip. She wasn't surprised that Kirche's thoughts had mirrored her own. "We'll just have to be careful. There's no way I was going in there after it. Not a chance."

"Oh don't get me wrong, I hadn't planned on going in there either," Kirche said, walking backwards for a moment as they reached the stone bridge. "What do you think it was? Bloodsucker?"

"No, I don't think so."

Kirche turned to walk forwards again on the bridge, eyeing the back of Louise's head incredulously. "Why? Do you think just because we gassed that lair it means they're all dead?"

Unseen to the Germanian, Louise rolled her eyes. Her fear quickly faded into light irritation. "Obviously not. It's just that we could see it. Whatever that was knew we were there, and we could still see it. Bloodsuckers don't do that."

"I suppose that's true," Kirche breathed, a little relieved.

"Don't sound so relieved," Louise said, quickly picking up on the redhead's tone. "What if it's a million times worse than a bloodsucker?"

They were silent, following the road uphill where the trees began to thicken. The only sounds to be heard were the rustling of their own equipment, and a few muffled pops of far-off gunfire. The Oakpine anomaly was growing closer.

"You know, I wish you wouldn't say things like that," Kirche grunted suddenly.

Louise remembered saying something similar to Siesta once. She shuddered at the implications of her own words. "I wish I hadn't said it either."

Kirche had been about to say something else as she turned to walk backwards again to check their rear. Instead, her rifle found its way back to her shoulder again. "Oh hell!"

Louise whirled around with her AK-74 ready, scanning the area through her holographic sight. She only saw the road they had just walked on.

"What? What was it?" Louise asked quickly, her grip on her rifle like iron.

"It went into the woods!" Kirche hissed.

"What went into the woods Kirche?"

"I-I-I don't know, it was like a man, just..." Kirche tried to gather her thoughts into a decent description that would match what she had only gotten a glimpse of. "It was walking weird, like... like it was using one of its arms to help it along, or something. As soon as I turned around, it went into the trees."

That description fit nothing Louise had ever heard of before, which didn't come as a big surprise. She knew the Zone was filled with many horrible and nasty things that she hadn't laid eyes on yet. She was sure there were even things out there that had yet to be seen by human eyes.

Suppressing the urge to say something Siesta likely would have in this situation, Louise instead tapped Kirche's arm. "Come on. Let's just keep moving."

Kirche looked hesitant for a moment, uttering something under her breath in Germanian before springing into motion. "Okay, okay."

They made their way along the road at a much brisker pace. Soon, the road curved, and the two girls left its surface to head further uphill. The twisted branches of the Oakpine poked out over the tops of the surrounding trees. Kirche swept the muzzle of her rifle around the area as they reached the base of one of four trees that made up the anomaly. The tree in question was the one Siesta had pointed out to Louise, saying that it was the easiest the climb.

Louise slung her Kalashnikov onto her back, eyeing Kirche. "Keep watch?"

"You're just going to leave me down here with that thing?" Kirche hissed, glancing at Louise for only a moment.

"Well do you want to climb it then?"

Kirche eyed the trees for a moment, and then the gully below. "I'll keep watch."

Instead of saying 'I thought so', Louise opted to just start climbing. It wasn't a hard climb since she'd done this enough times now to have it memorized, but it was still troublesome nonetheless. As she neared the top, she peered down into the swirling haze in the gully below. She knew that she should get herself a gas mask soon as an extra layer of protection. If she fell off of this tree now, she was done for. She tried not to think about it.

On the ground, Kirche cantered her weapon slightly to check if her rifle was indeed ready for full-automatic fire. Satisfied that it was, she kept the rifle to her shoulder, periodically scanning over the area around her. She had the distinct feeling that the thing from the village was currently watching her from somewhere frighteningly close by.

Rustling caught her attention and she immediately tensed up, although she mentally chastised herself a second later. It was just the noise of Louise moving through the Oakpine's canopy. Kirche knew she was being jumpy, but she felt it was with good reason.

She glanced over her shoulder and upward, letting out a small sigh of relief when she saw that Louise was making her way down the tree.

"Any luck?" Kirche asked at the pinkette reached the ground. Louise took a few steps, reaching into her satchel and producing an artifact. A small ball, covered in hundreds of long needle-like protrusions. The Germanian narrowed her eyes at it. "Is that it?"

A small smile graced Louie's lips. "It is, actually." She motioned towards the Oakpine. "I was beginning to think it wouldn't ever give up another one."

"Alright, well then let's get back to the..." Kirche trailed off, her blood running ice cold. There was something standing behind Louise near a tree, looking at them. "Louise! Move! Move!"

Louise didn't ask questions, cradling the Kolobok artifact in her arms as she leapt out of the way. Kirche raised her rifle, and the creature began to move, but it wasn't fast enough to avoid the long full-auto burst that came out of the AKM. It fell back, obscured by bushes and tall grass. The sound of zombie-like groans of pain began to reach their ears.

Louise scrambled to her feet, the Kolobok dropped into her satchel and her pistol drawn. The two girls shared a glance.

"What was that?" Louise hissed, keeping her muzzle trained where the creature had just fallen.

Kirche stared blankly. "I... haven't got a sweet clue, honestly."

The groans quickly faded off, leaving only silence. Louise thumbed back the hammer on the Sig, motioning for Kirche to advance with her. They moved carefully, the body of what Kirche had shot coming into view beyond a thorny bush.

"Do you think it's dead?" Kirche asked carefully, seeing that her burst of fire had punched a handful of holes through the creature's torso. She nearly jumped out of her boots when Louise fired a single shot into the mutant's head.

"It's dead now," Louise said lowly, using her thumb to push downward on the Sig's de-cocker to lower the hammer with an audible click. She holstered the pistol.

They both just stared down at the creature for a moment or so, trying to make sense of it. It had been a human at one

time, that they were both sure of, but now it was just some twisted monster dressed in nothing more than rags. The face, which now had a nine-millimeter hole punched through it, was gaunt, pale, and had a mouth filled with far too many yellowed and sharpened teeth. The mutant's most notable feature was its right arm, which was grossly elongated to the point of being almost twice as long as the left. The arm ended in a large paw-like hand, tipped with gnarled and dirty claws.

"God," Louise breathed. "What is that?"

"It's horrid," Kirche commented. She turned away from the corpse, shuddering. "And it was following us – ugh!"

"Was it about to attack me?" Louise asked, slinging her Kalashnikov to cradle it in her arms.

The Germanian shook her head. "No... I-I don't know. It was just sort of standing there, looking at us." She paused. "What if it was just curious and I've killed it for no reason?"

Louise continued to stare down at the deceased mutant. "Would you really take that chance?"

"No."

"Neither would I," Louise stated.

"Then let's just get out of here," Kirche said, a pleading edge to her voice. She turned, and started off towards the road without waiting for Louise's response. "God, I hate this place."

Louise stared down at the mutant for a moment longer, tearing her eyes away and following behind Kirche. The Germanian's last words stuck with her for some reason. She couldn't agree more with her, but when she did, she felt something nagging at the back of her mind. When they left the trees behind, Louise stared out across the marshes.

Just what was that nagging feeling anyway?

* * *

Kirche pulled open the curtain draped across the door, finding Siesta in bed and asleep. The dark-haired girl immediately sprung up into a sitting position, half asleep with her hand going under her pillow for her pistol. After registering who had entered the room with a grunt, she wordlessly flopped back down. Neither Kirche nor Louise were surprised at the action, Siesta seemed to do that every time somebody entered the room.

It was something that had thoroughly weirded out both of the mages, but they had quickly gotten used to it.

Louise cleared her Kalashnikov, placing it down on the desk. "Siesta, get up."

Siesta's only response was another grunt, to which Louise rolled her eyes. She moved past Kirche, who was clearing her weapon as well.

Louise prodded at Siesta's shoulder. "Come on. Up."

Siesta pulled the covers up over her face. "Fuck off, Louise."

"I won't," Louise said, growing frustrated. "Just get up. This is important."

"It's not."

Louise sighed loudly in frustration. "Really? And we even brought up all this food and cigarettes just for you."

Siesta shot bolt upright in the bed, narrowly missing hitting her head on the top bunk. She looked around the room wildly for a moment, before her expression darkened and she glared at Louise.

"You're such a freakin' liar," Siesta groused tiredly.

Louise ignored that. She reached into the satchel. "Here."

Siesta stared at the Kolobok blankly for a few seconds before her eyes widened in realization. "Where did you get this?"

"Same place we got the other one," Louise explained, crossing her arms after Siesta took the artifact from her. "You said they can heal, right?"

The dark-haired girl nodded, holding the object carefully in her hands. "Yeah, they can."

"Well, then... uh," Louse scratched at her scars, unsure. "Do it?"

Siesta let out a snort of laughter. "How long were you trying to get one of these?"

Kirche and Louise eyed each other for a moment, the Germanian speaking first. "Since you were shot."

Louise nodded. "Yes."

"I didn't know you two cared so much," Siesta remarked, a teasing smirk spreading across her face.

The two mages rolled their eyes, but smiled nonetheless.

* * *

The time was nearing five o'clock, so Louise and Kirche made their way up the stairs towards the deck for their agreed upon shifts guarding the ship. Kirche wrenched the door open, stepping out into the evening air. The sky was clear, with no signs of a forming emission or rainclouds in sight.

Louise hefted the rusted door closed. A group of four stalkers were currently standing idle around a barrel fire in the middle of the main deck.

As they approached, Louise noticed a man dressed heavily in body armor check his watch. A black PASGT helmet sat on top of his head, and a matching gas mask hung from his side. Observing his watch for a moment, he shrugged.

He gestured to Louise first. "Uh... Louise, right?"

Louise nodded.

The man turned to Kirche. "Alright, then you must be Kirche."

Kirche nodded as well. Louise could only assume this man was Spartacus.

Spartacus yawned tiredly, his FN FAL hanging one hand, while his other held a slim PDA. He spoke to the other stalkers present without looking up from the handheld device. "Okay guys, last emission was last night, so be aware that there may be another one tonight. Remember to keep an eye on the north since we're still getting some zombified trickling down through the marshes." He glanced up from his PDA. "Nimble, Snag, you guys know where you have to go."

Nimble nodded, hefting his RPK-74 up from its position with its butt resting against the deck. Louise eyed the man, unable to pick out any discernable features being that his face was completely covered. He donned a long well-worn hooded coat, had a balaclava covering his face, and tinted goggles covering his eyes. The ballistic vest underneath his partially open coat seemed to be stuffed with a numerable amount of magazines for his RPK. She wasn't sure if she'd seen him around the bar or not.

Snag, however, was a person who Louise saw plenty of in the bar, though she had never spoken to him. He carried an old AK-47, and wore a simple tan leather jacket with a grey hooded sweater underneath that covered his head. Both Nimble and Snag lazily waved as they moved to a different area of the deck while conversing amongst themselves.

Spartacus turned to the other man at the fire. This stalker was thin, wearing a long trench coat and a dirty pair of jeans. He had a Dragunov rifle slung over his shoulder, and a messy mop of blonde hair sitting on top of his head.

"Polar," Spartacus said, addressing the stalker. "You said you needed a new spotter, right?"

Polar shrugged. "I did say something like that, yeah."

Spartacus turned to Louise. "Can you do it?"

Louise wasn't entirely sure what it meant to be a spotter, but she was sure it couldn't be too difficult. "I can."

"Alright," The armored stalker replied, sliding his PDA into a pouch on his vest. "Take her then, Polar."

Polar nodded, leaving the fire and gesturing for Louise to follow as he passed. "C'mon. We're going up top."

Louise followed. As she left, she heard Spartacus speaking to Kirche. It seemed her was merely going to show the redhead which area of the ship she had to patrol. They wouldn't be placed together, it was unfortunate, but it wasn't a big

deal to Louise. She was far more concerned about being alone with some man she had never met before. He didn't seem to be the lecherous type, thus far at least, but she'd be keeping her guard up nonetheless.

The pinkette followed Polar back into the Skadovsk's superstructure. They immediately made for the stairs, ascending them all the way to the top where they found themselves in the ship's bridge. There wasn't much to speak of in this room, a small table with a few chairs sat near the middle of the room, and all of the ancient gauges and controls that would have once been critical to the Skadovsk's operation lined the front of the room. Polar moved to take a seat on a wooden chair that faced a window on the side of the bridge, giving him a view of the north.

"So yeah," the blonde man began awkwardly. He rested his rifle against the wall, brandishing a pair of compact binoculars instead. He peered through them as he spoke. "Like, uh, Spartacus said, we'll keep most of our attention to the north because of the zombies. The guys that just got off said that it was pretty quiet today, it still looks that way now."

"I see," Louise said, moving to the other side of the room to gaze out the window to the south. Glass crunched underfoot, unbearably loud in the small space. A thought struck her. "What do we do when it gets dark?"

"Take a nap," Polar snorted. Louise shot a disapproving glance at the back of the man's head. She wasn't sure if he had somehow sensed it or not, but he quickly amended his comment. "We're pretty useless up here by then, so Spartacus might drag us down on deck."

Louise's nod was unseen by the man. She peered out the front windows, looking out across the bow. She hadn't noticed before, but the entire front half of the ship was bent slightly to the right. She glanced back at the only other person in the room, finding him staring at her.

"What?" She asked, wondering if it was either her gender, or her hair, or perhaps both.

Polar turned away. "Nothing, it's just weird to see a girl take up stalking, especially one that isn't trying to hide her gender."

"I get that a lot," Louise said, moving to join Polar on the north side of the Skadovsk. It would probably have been a good choice for Louise to try and hide the fact she was female, but it was a little late for that now. Besides, her voice was too high-pitched and squeaky, and she was far too short. The only problem she could foresee Kirche and Siesta having was that their chests were simply too big. A small pang of jealousy hit her, but she willed it away. "All three of us get that a lot, actually."

Polar furrowed his brow. "There's three of you?"

Louise nodded. "Kirche, Siesta, and myself."

"Siesta?" Polar leaned his head back, chuckling. "Oh shit."

"What? Do you know her from somewhere? A lot of people seem to."

The man nodded. "We've met. It's a pretty embarrassing story, I'm sure she'll bring it up if I run into her."

"How long have you been around Zaton?" Louise asked, narrowing her eyes at the man. "I can't recall seeing you around."

"Five days," Polar answered easily, gazing through his binoculars once again. He tore his eyes away for a moment to glance at Louise. "Do you have binoculars?"

Louise nodded.

"Wanna watch the other side then?"

She nodded again, moving over to the table to place her rifle down and shrug off her backpack. After a moment's rummaging, she had the binoculars in her hands.

"What about you?" Polar asked.

Louise had her binoculars focused on the south. "Hmm?"

"How long have you been around Zaton?"

"Oh," Louise said. "About three weeks I think."

"You think?" There was a touch of laughter in Polar's voice.

"I stopped counting the days," Louise clarified, pivoting to direct her binoculars beyond the bow to the east. "It's depressing."

"Ah. So how old are you? You seem pretty young."

"Sixteen," Louise huffed. She heard wood creaking, and could only assume Polar had turned to look at her.

"You're a sixteen year old girl, and you're a stalker?"

She tore her eyes from the binoculars, eyeing the man crossly. "I didn't have much of a choice, okay?"

Polar turned away, shaking his head in disbelief. Louise heard him rummaging through his coat and saw him produce a pack of cigarettes. "Cigarette?"

"I don't smoke."

"No?" Polar chuckled lightly as he lit one. "You will."

Louise eyed the man as he exhaled a cloud of smoke. She turned away. Smoking?

There was no way she'd ever pick up such a self-destructive habit like that.

* * *

 _A/N: This wasn't really a chapter I had planned, but I decided to throw some of Louise and co into the mix since we haven't seen them for two chapters._

 _Also, fun fact: those of who have actually played the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games would have noticed that most, if not all, of the names I've used for stalkers are actual in-game NPC's. Grouse, Beard, Drifter, Tolik, and many others are all NPC's throughout all three games. Hell, even Oleg is an NPC. I think Polar is actually the first stalker that I've just made up. Don't expect him to take up a major role in the story._


	17. The Life of a Stalker VI

_The Life of a Stalker VI_

 _The Cordon_

 _11:21_

The rifle in Tabitha's hands felt less like a firearm and more like a lead weight. She shifted, leaning her back onto the tree as she looked down across the grassy hill towards the small collection of buildings below. Tabitha was an avid reader, and if she could only use one word to describe what she was seeing right now, it would be dreary.

Her staff was the only thing that could offer her any comfort. Montmorency hadn't said she should dispose of it - she would have refused anyway - so it sat snugly on her back completely wrapped in cloth to hide it from view. In a place where magic shouldn't exist, Montmorency reasoned that using it would draw a massive amount of attention to the both of them. Tabitha felt that the blonde's logic was fairly sound, so she agreed to keep her hands off it around other stalkers.

However, if it were just her and Montmorency around and something was about to turn them both into a red paste, the staff would come out and the magical eviscerating would begin. For now, the rifle would do, even if she would rather just skip to the magical eviscerating. Drifter had commented that she was surprisingly a good shot with the weapon, but it was honestly painful for her to use. She bruised easily, and the rifle pounded at her shoulder with each round fired. The joint would be purple for the days to come, she was sure, but she knew that whatever got caught in her sights would hopefully fair much worse.

At least her staff was always nearby. Montmorency still had her wand hidden somewhere on her person as well, if Tabitha wasn't mistaken.

She changed her grip on the Mosin-Nagant carbine, setting the butt of the M44 to rest on the ground. It wasn't a large rifle by any means; the size of the weapon fit her well, even if the ammunition it used was a little recoil intensive. Being a bolt- action, it wasn't the best Zone weapon either, but it was the only thing Montmorency could afford to buy her, along with the ammunition and a long coat. Montmorency had initially been unimpressed with the weapon presented to them, but Sidorovich had assured them that in the right hands a rifle like this could be just as effective as a Kalashnikov.

The coat she had gotten was warm enough, but the two bullet holes in the upper back were a little off-putting. When Sidorovich had presented it, he had jokingly told them that the other guy didn't need it anymore. That was even more off- putting. It was also a little on the large side for her, like most clothes. It nearly reached the ground, and she had to roll the sleeves up so they didn't hang down over her hands.

Her first few days in the Zone were uneventful at best. She hadn't seen many of the deadly mutants people spoke about, mostly small packs of blind dogs and some fleshes that tended to stay away from most groups of humans. She learned that the creatures she had encountered in Tristain were known as bloodsuckers, but there weren't many of those around these parts, Montmorency hadn't even seen one before. The worst creatures to be encountered in the Cordon were the snorks, and if the compound at the bottom of the hill was any indication, there were plenty of those to go around.

Tabitha gazed down at Montmorency, who sat silently on the grass with her knees to her chest. She stared off into the distance, her mind elsewhere. Drifter sat nearby, binoculars to his face and his AKM lying in the grass nearby, and Tolik paced back and forth on the crest of the hill, his pump-action shotgun resting on his shoulder.

Drifter groaned, lowering his binoculars. "Seriously Tolik, quit pacing."

"I can't man!" Tolik replied, pointing towards the car park. "Doing this shit was alright at first, but now? How many freaking snorks do you think are down there?"

"A lot," Drifter said dryly.

"We should just do something about it, this is retarded. Any day now, a million of those things are going to come up this hill and use us as their mid-afternoon snack."

Drifter eyed him over his shoulder, his gaze flat. "And what should we do? We don't have the man power to clear the place out, not since the brain scorcher went down."

"How many people were there back then?" Montmorency asked distantly.

Drifter sighed. "Well, the village was pretty full. There used to be another camp on the other side of the train bridge too."

The blonde turned her gaze on him. "What happened to it?"

"Bandits," Drifter replied. Montmorency's only response was to turn away. He checked his watch. "About lunch time now, who wants to go back?"

"Make the newbie do it," Tolik snorted.

Montmorency instantly gave the man a piercing glare. "Are you kidding? Don't make Tabitha do it, she's..." Tabitha silenced her by stepping away from the tree.

"I'll go," the blue-haired girl said, having been in on the conversation. Her own translation spell had eased the language barriers. She had gotten Montmorency to provide her with the required sample, just as Montmorency had gotten Sidorovich to unknowingly provider her with one during her initial days in the Zone.

"You sure, Tab?" Drifter asked. "Don't let Tolik make think you have to do anything he says, he's just an asshole."

Tolik scoffed. "You're an asshole too, Drifter."

"We're all assholes, look where we are," he said back. Drifter turned to Tabitha again. "So, are you sure?"

Tabitha nodded. "I'll do it," she insisted. Drifter shrugged.

Montmorency stood, eyeing Tabitha worriedly. She seemed to be about to protest, but resigned to sigh instead. She knew Tabitha was capable enough. "Just be careful, okay?"

Tabitha nodded, hefting the Mosin and starting off towards the main road. It wasn't like she wanted to prove herself useful, she just wanted to get away from this hill for a little while and move her stiffening legs. Listening, she heard the small group of stalkers talking as she left, but she didn't pay particular attention. It mostly sounded like Montmorency telling off Tolik. It seemed the absence of Guiche de Gramont and his skirt chasing antics did little to ease Montmorency's snappy attitude. If anything, it had made it worse.

The main road through the Cordon was lightly wooded on either side, so the short walk there would have been nice if it wasn't for the fact that it was in the Zone. Tabitha noticed there was a distinct lack of songbirds anywhere she went. It wasn't something you noticed until it was gone, and it gave the woods an eerie aura. The only birds around were the crows.

Maybe she'd write a book about this when they returned to Halkeginia. That is, if they ever returned. She pushed that doubt from her mind. She had to return, no matter what.

Tabitha made it to the road quickly, glancing over her shoulder at the train bridge in the distance. She paid it little mind, the military wasn't her problem right now. Along the road, she gave a springboard anomaly a wide berth, which was easily spotted it as it kicked up dust and warped the air around it. She eyed the dimple it had created in the road surface below.

The rest of her short walk was uneventful, the Zone was quiet today. She left the road, heading downhill towards the rookie village. She walked past the sentry posted at the opening in the fence, going straight for the fire in the center of the village. Hound saw her approaching and offered a nod.

"They send you on the lunch run?" He asked, poking at the fire with a long stick.

Tabitha nodded, coming to a stop. She knew what to bring back, enough food and drinks for everybody. It wasn't necessary, but it seemed Hound was going to take the liberty of helping her out. She wasn't going to complain.

"Right," he grunted, standing up. "Just wait here then." He retreated towards the other end of the village.

She stood awkwardly at the fire, gaining stares from the few stalkers loitering around the area. After a few moments, they went back to talking to each other.

"Can you believe that though? I've never heard of any mutant like that before," said one rookie. The other stalkers mumbled their agreement.

"People see new things every day," Fanatic grunted, nearing the fire and taking a seat on the log. He glanced up at Tabitha, and then turned his attention to the others. "So what was it?"

"Some kind of dog with wings."

Fanatic paused, about to crack open a can of soda. "A dog, with wings?"

"Yeah," another rookie stalker piped up. "A flying dog!"

"Did it actually fly?" Fanatic asked.

"I'm not sure, you'd have to ask Clumsy about it."

Fanatic scoffed. "I'll pass on that." He turned back to Tabitha. "So why are you here? I thought you were out watching the snorks."

Tabitha said nothing, pointing towards the currently approaching Hound. Fanatic immediately understood.

"Oh," he said. "Making the rookie do all the work, eh?"

Tabitha watched as Hound neared the fire. She slung her rifle onto her back alongside her staff, and accepted the two paper bags from Hound. She turned on her heel, and silently left.

Fanatic and Hound stared after her, along with a few rookies. "What's up with her, anyway?" Fanatic asked.

Hound shrugged. "Hell if I know. Too many freaking women around here now, soon enough we'll be cleaning the place up and remembering to leave the toilet seat down."

Fanatic snorted gruffly. "If we could even have an actual toilet around here I'd gladly leave the seat down."

Back on the hill overlooking the car park, Tolik was showing Drifter a picture of a woman. Drifter studied her intently before eyeing the owner of the picture.

"Are those fake boobs?" Drifter asked suddenly. He heard the sound of Montmorency scoffing at the topic of conversation nearby, but he ignored it.

Tolik laughed at his comment. "What do you think?"

"I'm not sure, they kind of look fake."

"It's both," Tolik said, grinning.

Drifter gave Tolik a narrow glance. "How can it be both?"

Tolik held up his hand to explain. "When she was young, one of her boobs didn't develop, so she got an implant for one, and left the other one normal."

Eyeing Tolik in awe, and then the picture, Drifter shook his head in disbelief. "Are you serious? You're not just messing with me?"

"Oh I'm serious," Tolik assured. "I didn't even notice at first because I would always grab one boob with my right hand, and her ass with the other. I'm pretty sure she was freaking out waiting for my reaction."

Drifter leaned his head back and laughed. "The best of both worlds," he said dreamily. He turned back to Tolik. "So?" He asked expectantly.

"So what?" Tolik said, shrugging. "She dumped me for some other guy when I lost my job at the garage."

"So?" Drifter asked again, dragging the word out.

"Okay, okay. So I secretly liked the fake one more!"

Drifter handed the picture back, chuckling.

"You men are pigs," Montmorency grumbled, casting them both a glare. She wasn't sure what a breast implant could be, but that wasn't the point. "The lot of you, just pigs, I swear. You're all the same."

Tolik laughed, putting the picture away. "Oh come on Monty, just-" He stopped, hearing something moving through the brush behind him. He whirled around, his shotgun clumsily readied only to find Tabitha.

"Shit," Drifter breathed, putting his half-readied AKM down. "Don't sneak up on us like that."

Montmorency eyed Tabitha with interest, having hefted her own SKS up into her arms. She hadn't even heard Tabitha coming. The emptiness in her stomach quickly overpowered that thought as her eyes drifted down to the bags in the Gallian's hands.

The food was quickly divided and the group set about indulging themselves in their meals.

"I like the food at Rostok more," Montmorency commented, taking a generous bite from her bread.

"Don't we all?" Tolik laughed. "Not very healthy, though."

"I think unhealthy food is the least of our worries," Drifter pointed out. "You'll catch a bullet before that stuff clogs your arteries."

Tolik nodded in agreement, while Montmorency thought that line of thinking was a little too morbid for her tastes. They continued to eat, Tolik and Drifter engaging in yet another conversation that didn't interest Montmorency in the least.

Tabitha stared down at her can of soda, not feeling particularly hungry. "When are we leaving?" She quietly asked Montmorency in Tristainian.

Montmorency eyed the blue-haired girl, who sat with her back to the tree. She knew she was talking about heading north. "I don't know," she sighed. "We both need more experience, and money." Montmorency had grumbled out the last part.

"We need to go soon."

If anybody wanted to find Siesta more than Montmorency, it was Tabitha. Montmorency didn't know why, but she was sure the Gallian had her reasons.

"In a few days?" Montmorency asked, mostly to herself. She heaved a nervous sigh. "Talking about doing it is all well and good, but," she looked to Tabitha, worry etched onto her face. "I've heard a lot of things about what's actually beyond the barrier, and none of them are good."

"Worse than here?" Tabitha asked.

"Apparently," Montmorency nodded. "I've heard that being out here in The Cordon is like a vacation compared to some of the other places around here."

"We can do it."

The blonde stared for a few moments. "Kirche told me you could fight well, is that true?"

Tabitha nodded.

"Then hopefully we'll, um..." Montmorency trailed off, squinting down the hill. Something was coming out of the car park. A large group of somethings. Not taking her eyes off what she was seeing, she called out to the other stalkers present. "Uh, guys?"

They didn't seem to hear her, too indulged in their own conversation. A group of what was undoubtedly snorks was coming towards them, writhing and crawling over each other viciously. Montmorency's stomach twisted into a knot. The mutants were clearly pouring out of every gap they could find in the compound's steel fencing.

 _Oh God._

She threw down her drink, grabbing up her SKS. "Guys! Look!"

Drifter and Tolik both looked to Montmorency, initially peeved at being interrupted, until Tolik noticed what was going on.

"Oh shit!" Tolik swore, racking a shell into his shotgun's chamber.

Drifter said nothing, immediately chambering his Kalashnikov and raising it to his shoulder. He wasted no time, firing semi-automatic blindly into the group of snorks. Montmorency did the same, peering down the sights of her SKS she fired at the snorks, not choosing any specific targets. There were simply so many of them that she couldn't help but hit at least one.

It seemed the snorks had enough of being watched.

Tabitha raised her weapon, the powerful 7.62x54mm cartridge causing it to recoil heavily into her shoulder. She worked the bolt, and fired again. Tolik began to panic as the snork's horrible screeches reached his ears. They were too far off for his buckshot to be effective, and he'd much rather if they weren't even close enough for it to be effective at all. He fired anyway.

"Fuck this!" Drifter yelled over the gunfire. There were too many snorks for them to take on all on their own. He rose from his crouch. "Run! Just run!"

Nobody had any arguments against that, so they all followed their senior stalker at a dead sprint through the trees.

"Where are we going man!?" Tolik shouted as they ran. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure both Montmorency and Tabitha were on his heels.

"I've got an idea!" Drifter shouted back.

Tolik swore. With no ideas of his own, he could only follow Drifter and hoped that his plan was sound.

They reached the road in record time, and Drifter immediately turned towards the train bridge. Tolik suddenly didn't like his idea.

"Dude! The freaking military!?"

"Well what else can we do?" Drifter retorted. "I'm not leading them back to the village!"

"And you think the grunts won't carve us up when they see us leading a damn army of snorks to them!?"

"I told you I had a fucking idea! Kuznetsov still owes me a favor! Remember?"

"No!?"

As Montmorency followed behind, she sincerely hoped what Drifter was thinking would work. She cast a hurried glance over her shoulder as her legs began to burn, seeing Tabitha, but no snorks to speak of. She knew better than to slow down.

As the military checkpoint neared, the soldiers could plainly be seen readying their weapons. They were set up around piles of rubble from the fallen section of the bridge, safely behind rows of sandbags and other debris.

Major Kuznetsov glared down at the approaching group of stalkers from atop the pile of rubble. He raised a hand, signaling his own men to hold their fire for now. "Hey!" He called out as Drifter skidded to a halt, huffing. "Are you trying to get yourself shot, stalker?"

"There's..." Drifter panted, pointing towards the trees. "Freaking snorks!"

The Major narrowed his eyes, while his soldiers began sharing glances. "What?"

"The snorks over at the car park!" Drifter clarified. "We just saw a shitload of them heading this way!"

"What, and you just came over here to warn us?" One of the soldiers asked, sneering. "Do you think we're dumb or something?"

The others quickly caught on to Drifter's plan, which seemed half-assed at best. Just because Major Kuznetsov accepted bribes and looked the other way most of the time, didn't mean he wouldn't have them all gunned down if he was in a bad mood. Montmorency could only wonder what Drifter meant by Kuznetsov owing him a favor.

If the soldiers realized that Drifter was just leading the snorks to them as an excuse to get some sort of back-up, then they'd surely all be shot for it.

The snorks burst through the treeline near the road, roaring and snarling as they crawled over each other.

The soldiers immediately leapt into action, firing their Kalashnikovs into the massive group of approaching mutants. Montmorency and Tabitha, along with Drifter and Tolik all crouched near the base of the pile of rubble, rapidly firing their own weapons.

The snorks weren't much of a match for the screaming wall of lead they met head on. The snorks behind crawled over the corpses as the dead began to quickly pile up.

Tabitha's ears rang painfully as she stripped another five round clip into her rifle. Her shoulder ached furiously as the Mosin pounded at the joint again and again. She made a mental reminder to have Montmorency perform some light healing magic on it later when they got the chance.

The ravaged group of feral mutants seemed to realize that they didn't stand much of a chance. The soldiers kept firing even as the sparse few snorks that remained scattered into the trees.

The Major called for the soldiers to cease fire, and after a few short moments The Cordon was bathed in silence once again. He stomped down the rubble towards Drifter, his face twisted darkly as he adjusted his beret.

"Just what the hell was that about?" Kuznetsov growled, jamming a finger into the stalker's chest. Up close, the Major was much shorter than he looked. "Are you stupid enough to think I'd believe that you'd just run down here to warn us about some snorks?"

Drifter was silent for moment, all too aware of the barrels that seemed very eager to point in his direction. "I just thought I'd... uh, I'd pull that favor you owed me."

The Major pinched at the bridge of his nose. "Drifter, you are one giant fuck-up, you know that?"

"I've been told," Drifter replied.

"Just get your ass out of my sight," Kuznetsov growled, turning and stomping back up the rubble. "We're even now, so don't expect anything nice from me anymore."

Drifter didn't need any more convincing, and neither did the other stalkers. The all swiftly turned away, putting the train bridge and the snorks behind them.

* * *

 _Zaton_

 _18:34_

A lone zombie stumbled through the marshes, a grubby hand clutching a mud caked revolver. It broke through a row of reeds, wading straight into a knee deep puddle of water. It stumbled on an unseen obstacle beneath the water's surface, falling face first. It took a moment to right itself, uncaring that it was now completely soaked.

Louise watched the zombified stalker from behind a pair of binoculars with morbid interest. She had never really gotten the chance to simply observe one before. They all tended to try and kill her the moment they laid eyes on her. It shambled about, tripping over easily avoidable obstacles, and had just fallen into a giant puddle of water. It was just a mindless zombie.

A rifle discharged next to her, and she flinched. A fraction of a second later she saw the bullet slam into the zombie's chest cavity. It stumbled for a moment, blood gurgling from its open mouth before it finally fell back into the water. It didn't move anymore.

"You got him," Louise advised, ignoring the ringing in her ear. She was quickly becoming used to that. She glanced over at Polar, who hadn't taken his eye from the Dragunov's scope.

He brought his head up, and sighed. "Well, I guess that's our excitement for the day."

"I'm quite fine with that," Louise grumbled, moving away from the window. She heard Polar snort as she moved to the other side of the bridge. She directed her binoculars out the window, finding nothing of interest. A few crows circled in the sky, and a small pack of blind dogs scurried through the marshes. She moved to the front of the bridge, looking down towards the deck. She couldn't see Kirche anywhere. "How long have we been up here?" She asked.

Polar checked his watch. "One hour, and thirty minutes," he advised.

"Really? That's it? It's felt like longer."

Polar nodded even though Louise wasn't looking in his direction. He continued to scan over the marshes through his scope. "So where are you from?" He asked randomly, catching the pinkette off guard.

Louise froze, knowing full well that she couldn't just tell some random stalker where she was actually from. He wouldn't even believe it anyway. She had to lie, and they all had their lies prepared in advance with the help of Grouse.

"I'm from Kiev," Louise replied quickly. She hoped that didn't sound too fake to the other stalker, she was a terrible liar.

"Oh? Polar said. "I've got a step-brother that lives there." He eyed Louise wryly. "So where do you get your hair dye around here?"

Louise rolled her eyes, unseen to the other stalker. She had encountered this question before. "I don't dye my hair. It's supposed to be this color."

Polar was silent for a moment. "So your natural hair color is pink?"

"Strawberry blonde," Louise corrected.

"No, it's just pink."

"Whatever," she grumbled, keeping her gaze on the marshes. "Why does everybody think that's so weird?"

As Louise glanced at the man, she noticed he was giving her a look that made her feel as if she had grown an extra head. "Your hair is naturally pink, that's seriously weird as hell."

Louise shrugged. "So are my eyes. Is that weird too?"

Polar squinted at her face. How he hadn't noticed that before was beyond him. "Yes."

She sighed, turning away. She had been about to say something else when she heard somebody loudly coming up the stairs. She initially suspected Spartacus, but thought it was a little early for him to pull them down on deck. Siesta quickly came into view.

"'Sup?" Siesta greeted, cradling her G3A3 as she strolled into the room.

Louise eyed her for a moment, before turning back to the outside. Siesta was dressed in her full stalker garb once again, something she hadn't seen in a while. "What are you doing up here?" She asked.

Siesta shrugged, laying her rifle down on the table. The Mosin was strangely nowhere to be seen. "I was bored. I came to annoy you." She noticed the other stalker in the room glance her way, and she narrowed her eyes at him. "Polar?"

"Yeah," Polar sighed, avoiding her eyes. "Hi."

Siesta grinned wolfishly. "Well I haven't seen you in a while."

Louise looked between the two. "I heard there was an embarrassing story here somewhere."

The dark-haired girl laughed loudly, while Polar inserted his face directly into his palm.

"It's nothing really," Siesta said, flapping her hand dismissively between giggles. "I was heading out with Petruha one day, and we were supposed to meet Polar and some other stalkers. It had just rained, so the grass was pretty wet. Polar was coming downhill and slipped on the grass, and he fell face first right into a pile of boar shit!" Siesta's laughter resumed, reaching new levels.

Polar turned to Louise, and she just gave him a sympathetic smile and a shrug as if to say 'I'm sorry that my friend is completely rude and has no tact whatsoever'.

As Siesta's laughter died down, Louise turned to her. "So how is your leg?"

The stalker bounced as if to demonstrate. "Great, still a little stiff though."

"So is there any real reason you've come up here? Like, other than to just be a nuisance?"

Siesta clicked her tongue, pouting. "You're so mean! I actually might have a good job lined up for us."

"I already have a job though," Louise pointed out. "An easy one."

The dark-haired girls pout deepened. "Oh come on, we haven't done anything together in ages!"

Polar snorted, lighting a cigarette. "You two sound like some kind of couple."

Louise gaped, her face reddening. "W-what!? No! A-a-a-absolutely not! No!"

Siesta feigned a hurt look. "What? Am I not good enough for you or something?"

The pinkette frantically glanced between the two stalkers, sputtering to the point of being unable to get a word out. Siesta snorted with laughter, patting the shorter girl on the shoulder.

"Jeez, calm down, would you? I'm only messing around."

Louise exhaled, shrugging Siesta's hand off. "You're weird."

Siesta laughed. "I'm weird? When your face gets red it goes right out to your ears."

"My face isn't red!" Louise insisted, her hands going up to her cheeks.

"It kind of is."

Louise sighed, eager to change the subject. "So this job then, what is it?" She grumbled.

"Oh, you know, the usual stuff," Siesta shrugged, smiling. "Go someplace, get something, and come back. Just don't get shot or eaten along the way."

That sounded like the usual deal to Louise. "When are we doing this?"

"Tomorrow morning, hopefully," Siesta chirped.

Louise balked. "Tomorrow morning? Come on, I've got to be up until five you know!"

* * *

Alexander awoke, groaning. Shifting, he found his back incredibly stiff. Sleeping on the comfiest couch wasn't a great idea at the best of times, but this couch wasn't particularly comfortable at all. This couch appeared to have been homemade ages ago.

He had found out that the room he had been staying in was indeed Matilda's room, so he had promptly moved to the couch. Tiffania had offered up more protest than Matilda, who had simply asked if he was sure. The last few days had been pleasant for Alexander. No Zone, no killing, and Matilda and Tiffania were nice company, even if the former was rather sarcastic and quick witted. Matilda had eased up on her suspicions of him, but she still hadn't given him his weapons back. He hadn't asked for them either.

Sitting up, he found that he was currently the sole occupant of the cabin. He wondered where the girls might have gone since it seemed well into the morning judging by the sunlight streaming in through the windows. Listening, he distinctly heard the sounds of wood being chopped outside. His chivalrous side got the better of him, and he threw his blankets off. He wasn't going to let a woman cut firewood without offering some kind of assistance.

He stood, his ankle still plagued with a dull ache, but it was manageable. Feeling that his t-shirt and pants was suitable attire for wood cutting, he slipped on his boots and made for the front door.

The warm morning sun was much more pleasant than any weather the Zone ever offered. He rounded the cabin, making for the sounds of splitting wood.

He stopped dead, his stomach clenching and his mouth falling open. Whatever was actually cutting the wood certainly wasn't human by any stretch of the imagination. It was neither Matilda nor Tiffania cutting the wood. It seemed an animated suit of armor had taken up the task instead.

The armor stopped what it was doing, turning to look at Alexander with an empty helmet. It firmly held a woodcutter's axe in its hands.

Matilda appeared out from behind the cabin with two sections of log to be split. She eyed Alexander for a hair of a moment, placing the logs down next to the suit of armor.

"So you're finally awake," she remarked, seemingly oblivious to Alexander's shock. "I thought you were going to sleep the entire day away."

Matilda brandished her wand, flicking it to send the armor back into motion.

Alexander pointed to the armor as it brought the axe down. "What the heck is this thing!?"

The mage raised her brow, looking to the suit of armor and then back to the gaping man. She scoffed. "Haven't you ever seen a golem before?"

"No!" Alexander sputtered as if that should have been obvious. "That's seriously... I-I don't even know the word." He wiped at his forehead. "Freaky, I guess?"

Matilda rolled her eyes. "Some of you people, honestly." She turned to the animated armor. "It's just a golem, they're nothing special. Being an Earth mage, I can make these out of things like dirt, rocks, and even metals like this one," Matilda explained, speaking to Alexander slowly as if he were a child. "I make these bronze ones to do menial tasks. They're durable, and they don't take a lot of willpower to create."

Alexander sighed, feeling a headache coming on. "Uh, right then. So, how does it work?"

"Magic, obviously," Matilda answered.

"Magic?" Alexander remarked, disbelief in his voice.

The green-haired woman turned on the man, her eyes narrowing. The golem stopped moving. "Why are you acting like that's such an odd thing? Everybody knows that magic can do things like this, it's nothing new."

Alexander stared straight over her head, ignoring her question. "Why did it just stop?"

Matilda sighed, turning back to the golem and flicking her wand again. "Because my concentration was broken. Golems aren't sentient, it won't just go off on its own, and I have to concentrate to make it move." She paused. "I can even make it parrot my own movements as well." Matilda demonstrated by lifting a leg, and the golem lifted the same leg simultaneously.

"That is definitely one of the craziest things I've ever seen in my entire life," Alexander remarked.

Matilda scoffed. "How hard did you hit your head, exactly?"

"Pretty damn hard, apparently."

Matilda didn't reply, instead, she kept the golem dutifully in motion.

"So why didn't you wake me up if I was sleeping in?" Alexander asked, trying his best to get over his awe.

"I shouldn't have to," Matilda huffed.

Alexander scoffed. "Really? Tiffania told me she has to wake you every morning or else you'll sleep in too."

Matilda gave him a quick and light glare over her shoulder, but she didn't seem too annoyed at his comment.

"Where is Tiffania anyway?"

"She went into town today."

"Oh. Well, I actually came out here to help with the firewood," Alexander continued. "But, uh, I guess you have it under control then?"

Matilda shrugged. "You don't expect a woman like myself to be cutting firewood by hand, do you? Either way, the thought is appreciated."

It didn't take long for the golem to finish its job, planting the axe directly into the tree stump it had been using as a chopping block. Matilda dismissed the golem, which shattered into a sparkling dust before fading away into nothingness. Alexander eyed the display, unsure of what to think. It was certainly interesting.

"If you do actually want to help, then you can carry some of this wood inside for me," Matilda offered.

Alexander sprung out of his stupor, nodding. "Sure."

He held out his arms, and Matilda began to pile the split wood onto them. He frowned once the stack had reached his chin.

"How much of this are you going to make me carry, exactly?"

Matilda snorted. "All of it."

Alexander rolled his eyes at the woman. "I can make multiple trips."

"And I could just levitate all of it," Matilda shrugged, smirking. "But you said you wanted to help."

She led Alexander inside, directing him to place the wood down near the fireplace. He left Matilda inside, intent on gathering more of the wood. Grabbing up an armful of split wood, Alexander turned away from the chopping block only to freeze in place.

It was a bloodsucker, and it was standing almost right behind him. The mutant froze mid-step, obviously not expecting to be so quickly discovered. They stared at each other for a moment with Alexander thanking his lucky stars that he had turned around just in time to see the bloodsucker become visible.

Alexander acted fast, and threw the armful of wood in the mutant's face. It hissed angrily, but Alexander didn't plan on watching it anymore. He whirled around, wrenched the axe from the stump, and turned to face the creature again with the wood cutting tool already swinging.

He stumbled, halting his movements partway through. The bloodsucker was already gone.

Swearing under his breath, he held the axe ready. He already knew that this was a terrible weapon to go up against a bloodsucker with. It would easily carve him up into bits. Still, he kept the axe ready, slowly moving around the cabin and towards the door. He blanched when he realized that he had left it open, and the bloodsucker could have already gotten inside and had its way with Matilda.

When he neared the door, Matilda emerged. He breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing her alive, but that relief was short lived. She immediately raised her wand to him.

Matilda eyed the axe in Alexander's hands, having come to see what was taking him so long. "What are you planning on doing with that?" She asked dangerously.

Alexander realized what this must look like, him sneaking into the cabin to plant the axe firmly into her back. He took one hand off the handle, holding it up as a sign of goodwill. "Just wait a second. This seriously isn't what it-"

He didn't get the chance to finish. Something came crashing down on him from above, and he immediately thought Matilda must have performed some magic on him. He quickly realized that the bloodsucker had jumped down from the roof of the cabin, and was now pinning him to the ground.

The bloodsucker dug its claws into Alexander's back, eliciting a cry of pain from the man. The mutant stared in Matilda's direction, its tentacles spreading wide at it hissed. It leapt up from the stalker, disappearing in mid-air.

Matilda's shock had worn off almost instantly, but she knew she couldn't attack whatever had just landed on Alexander without hurting him as well.

Alexander struggled to his feet, taking the axe with him. "That's why I have the axe," he ground out.

Matilda kept her wand ready. "Just what the bloody hell was that thing?"

"We've got to kill it," Alexander said, ignoring her. "It won't leave until it feeds on one or both of us. Where are you keeping my guns?"

"Don't ignore me! If you know what that is, tell me!"

"Yes!"

"Then what is it!?"

"This really isn't a great time," Alexander growled, feeling warm blood soaking his shirt. He swore in Ukrainian, turning his back towards Matilda. "Am I bleeding bad?"

Matilda winced at the sight of the wounds. "You are."

"All the more reason to get rid of this thing then."

Matilda was concentrating hard, but she couldn't sense the creature on the ground anywhere around her. "It must be light on its feet. I can't sense it."

"I wouldn't bet on it being on the ground."

They both began to back away from the cabin, leaving themselves out in the open. This way, they wouldn't be pounced on from above, and they would likely see the creature coming through the grass before it had a chance to turn visible.

"How is it invisible?" Matilda hissed.

"I don't know," Alexander replied. "It isn't magic, if that's what you're thinking."

"How could you-" Matilda cut herself off, sensing a weight suddenly dropping on the ground nearby. Being an Earth mage had its benefits. She chanted quickly, and a dozen stone spites shot out of the ground to impale the bloodsucker all over. It quickly became visible again, and Matilda dismissed the spikes. The mutant lay motionless, bleeding profusely all over. "-Know that?" She finished.

Alexander lowered the axe, relieved. "I just do."

Matilda lifted her wand again, the ground turning underneath the bloodsucker and swallowing it whole. Alexander observed, but he wasn't surprised at this point.

"Inside," Matilda commanded, pointing with her wand. "Now, you're bleeding."

He didn't have any objections to that. Leaving the axe outside by the door, he entered the cabin with Matilda on his heels. She directed him to the table, where he turned a chair around and sat backwards. He removed his shirt, eyeing it with discontent. Three claws had sunk through his shirt and into both sides of his upper back. He idly tried to remember if bloodsuckers had more than three fingers or not. Either way, his white shirt was now ruined.

Matilda returned quickly with a pail of water. She placed it on the table and eyed his back, soaking a cloth.

"You don't seem too shaken up about that," Matilda observed, wiping away the blood. Alexander let out a light hiss of pain.

"You get used to it after a while."

Matilda narrowed her eyes. "What is it exactly you do for a living, Alexander?"

Alexander thought for a moment. Telling Matilda he had held the rank of Major in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and was now serving under the SBU wouldn't exactly be believable. Ukraine didn't even exist in this place, and neither did the Zone, although some of the Zone's nastier denizens seemed to be making appearances. He wondered why. Matilda hadn't known what the bloodsucker was, so this couldn't have been going on here for a long time.

He decided to tell a half truth. "I was a soldier."

"Albionese?"

"No," Alexander answered quickly. "I don't know if my accent's given it away or not, but I'm not from around here."

"Hadn't crossed my mind," Matilda remarked sarcastically. "So you're not one anymore?"

Alexander supposed that in light of recent events, he wasn't. "No, not anymore."

Matilda continued to clean Alexander's wounds. He heard her opening a bottle of some kind, and immediately felt burning pain as alcohol was poured over the gashes. He assumed practical medical practices weren't particularly advanced around here, especially in a cabin in the middle of the woods, but doing that was better than nothing.

He eyed the bottle as it was placed down on the table. It wasn't a brand he was familiar with, that much was obvious, but he hadn't taken Matilda for a drinker.

"I heard the rumors," Matilda said idly. "About the horrible creatures lurking around as of late, but I hadn't actually seen anything like that until now. You've seen them before?"

"I have experience with those, yes," Alexander admitted. "There's worse than that."

Matilda was silent for a moment. "So what was it? Where did they even come from?"

"Who knows where they actually come from," he said. Nobody in the Zone actually knew where bloodsuckers originated from. It was as if they had just shown up one day. They didn't seem to have a distinction between male or female either,

so it was only a guess as to how they reproduced, if they even did. "They're called bloodsuckers."

"What?"

Alexander realized that he had said the name for bloodsucker in Ukrainian. "I think the best translation would be 'bloodsucker'."

Matilda stopped. "So they suck blood then? Like vampires?"

Alexander snorted. "Yeah, like vampires, except that they aren't."

"I've got bandages here somewhere, hold on," Matilda said, leaving the table to begin rummaging through some cupboards. She clicked her tongue. "For the love of... what did Tiffania do with those?"

"So what do you do for a living?" Alexander asked wryly. "Or do you just hang out here in this cabin?"

"I had a job," Matilda said, her head currently stuck in a cupboard. "Keyword being 'had'."

"What? You get fired or something?"

"No," Matilda replied indignantly. "The job just stopped existing."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I was working in Tristain," Matilda clarified, as if that should have been enough of an explanation. Alexander remembered the name. Siesta and Louise told him that was the place they were from, he was sure.

"And?"

Matilda huffed, extracting herself from the cupboard along with the bandages. "I was a secretary at the Tristain Academy of Magic, have you heard of it?"

Alexander had, again, from Louise and Siesta. He would have never imagined in a million years that all of this was real. "Uh, maybe once or twice," he said. He then snorted. "You were a secretary? I can't picture that."

"Oh shush, it was a good job. Have you heard about the things happening in Tristain?"

"Enlighten me."

"Well," Matilda began, getting to work with the bandages. "Nobody is really sure how or why, but everything just went to hell after they had their Springtime Familiar Summoning Ceremony. All kinds of strange things started happening. Areas of land started turning foul and dangerous, people started going missing on a regular basis, and there were the rumors of those hellish creatures. One day a large part of the Academy's outer wall just kind of... I don't know, disappeared? One of the teaching staff tried to get close to it, but they ended up dying on the spot."

"They died?" Alexander asked. What she was saying just sounded like anomalies and mutants to him, and the people going missing? Could that be because of things like the green portal eating him up?

Matilda sighed. "Yes. I would rather if I hadn't seen it, but it happened. The Academy was closed after that. I had, um..." She paused, thinking about what she was going to say next. She cleared her throat. "I could have had some other prospects in Tristain after that, but I decided it was best if I came back here to Tiffania."

"Are you two related?"

"No," Matilda answered. "But we're close. I've known Tiffania for a long time."

"I see," Alexander responded as Matilda stood back and observed her handiwork.

"I'm not much of a doctor, or a healer, but that's the best I can do."

Alexander stood, wincing as he rolled his shoulders. "It'll be fine, I'm sure. I don't have a spare shirt though. I guess I'll just have to throw on my jacket."

"I'd give you something, but," Matilda eyed him over as he moved across the room to the rest of his gear in the corner. "I don't think I have anything that would fit you."

Alexander shrugged on the jacket he normally wore underneath his vest, knowing that it would be uncomfortably warm in this weather. "It's not a big deal."

Matilda disappeared into the back of the cabin without a word. A few minutes later, she returned cradling Alexander's guns and magazine pouches. She hefted it all to the table, sighing. "I suppose you've proven that you're not out to murder us."

Alexander moved to the table, picking up the AK and pulling back the charging handle slightly on instinct to check if it was loaded. It still was, and the safety wasn't even on. He couldn't blame Matilda for that; it wasn't like she could have known. He removed the magazine, and ejected the chambered round. It rolled along the table, so he stopped it before it could fall to the floor. He stood it up on its end, and left it. He moved onto his pistol, strapping the holster to his thigh.

Matilda picked up the cartridge, observing it closely. "Those are guns you have, right? I've never seen anything like these before."

"Yes," Alexander answered. "What kind of guns have you seen then?"

"The normal kind I suppose? You know, muskets and the like."

He turned to the green-haired woman, snorting in amusement. "Muskets? Seriously?"

* * *

 _The Cordon_

 _19:17_

Sidorovich crossed his arms when he saw Drifter coming down the stairs.

"What do you want?" Drifter asked irritably, approaching the window the old man did most of his dealings through. The greasy trader was giving off the distinct aura that he wasn't impressed with something. It didn't take much guessing on Drifter's part to figure out what it was.

"I just got off the radio with a little man who goes by the name of Nikita Kuznetsov," Sidorovich began gruffly. "He had a few interesting things to say."

Drifter sighed, massaging his forehead. He'd caught enough flak from the others already, especially Fanatic. "Oh, here we go."

Sidorovich reached for his cigarettes, shaking his head. He lit one, and inhaled. "So what exactly were you thinking anyway? I've heard about you doing some stupid shit, but I think this might top all of it."

The stalker glared. During his days as a rookie he had made some poor choices, but he liked to think he'd vastly improved as a stalker. He had been bailed out of more than a few sticky situations by his fellow stalkers, and even Siesta herself had come to his rescue on one occasion, driving off a pack of blind dogs when he had become cornered. He still owed her for that one, he remembered. That is, if he even ever saw her again.

"Listen, Kuznetsov owed me a favor," Drifter insisted. He spread his arms out slightly in an exasperated manner. "Like, what the hell was I supposed to do man? Lead the damn snorks back here?"

Sidorovich sighed. As much as he'd hate to admit it, Drifter did have a point there. "He owed you?" He asked, furrowing his brow. "For what? That thing in the Swamps?"

Drifter nodded an affirmative. "He'd be bloodsucker food if it wasn't for us."

"Well you didn't actually expect him to be fair about it, did you?" Sidorovich asked, chuckling.

"I was kind of hoping, yeah," Drifter replied, sighing. "He didn't shoot us, so that seems fair enough to me."

"Just steer clear of him for a while, eh?" Sidorovich advised.

Drifter had already planned on doing just that. The Cordon was divided by a high embankment which the train tracks sat on, with a bridge in the middle where the main road ran underneath. Bribing your way through the military's checkpoint there was the easiest way to the other side, as long as Kuznetsov was on duty, but there were other ways. Farther down the embankment, an unguarded tunnel ran through, although it was plagued with electrical anomalies. Most experienced stalkers could navigate it, but many rookies would have no such luck. Another way was to detour through the

Darkscape, into the Dark Valley, and then into the Garbage. This method was less desirable being that it was agonizingly long, and it brought anybody uncomfortably close to the Bandit's base in the Dark Valley.

Furthermore, the road to the Darkscape was just beyond the car park, which was where the snorks had been coming down from. The problem with the snorks seemed to be mostly resolved as of right now, but one could never be too careful. As of right now, the Darkscape was considered to be a hotspot for snorks by most stalkers.

"Yeah, I'll do that," Drifter finally answered.

"Good man," Sidorovich grunted, his chair creaking as he shifted. "Now, onto Monty then."

Drifter raised his brow. "Monty? What about Monty?"

"What do you think? How's she coming along?"

"We've turned her into a decent stalker, I guess," Drifter replied with a shrug. "That's more than I can say about some of the rookies around here, but lately, since this other girl showed up..."

Sidorovich nodded. "She's been on about Siesta more than ever, right?"

"Oh, you have no idea," Drifter groaned. "Like a freakin' broken record."

"Does she realize that she's probably chasing a ghost?"

"Yes," Drifter huffed, crossing his arms and leaning his weight onto one foot. "I've told her, Hound's told her, Fanatic's told her, I think even Clumsy said it was a dumb idea."

"That's saying a lot coming from Clumsy," Sidorovich chuckled.

Drifter joined in. "Yeah, no kidding." If anyone had ever made stupider decisions that Drifter, it was Clumsy. Unlike Drifter, Clumsy still had a bad habit of making them regularly.

"But you're not going to try to stop her?"

"Well, no," Drifter huffed, furrowing his brow. "Who do you think I am? Her dad or something? She probably thinks I'd try and stop her, but I'm not going to."

"I just thought it'd be a shame if she ran off like Siesta did. Siesta was one of my best stalkers, and Monty looks like she's shaping up to be a good one too."

"What's up with you and Siesta anyway?" Drifter asked, scoffing.

"I just told you," Sidorovich said, annoyed. "She was one of my best stalkers, one of the first too."

"Since when?"

"Since '07," Sidorovich answered.

Drifter was silent, a little taken aback. Everybody knew that Siesta had been around for a while. She was well known amongst veteran stalkers since she was one of the only females around, but not many knew much about her personally. She had a close group of stalkers she tended to work with, Wolf and Fanatic being among them, but otherwise she was known for being almost a complete loner. Drifter didn't know why, maybe she didn't trust easily, or maybe she just didn't like people. He couldn't blame her for either, especially in a place like this.

If Siesta had really been in the Zone since 2007, that made her a little more than another veteran stalker. In Drifter's eyes, that put her on the same level as stalkers like Doctor, Strelok and maybe even Guide.

* * *

 _A/N: Chapter Six of The Life of a Stalker comes to a close, making this the seventeenth chapter overall. A little longer than the others in this arc, but that's something I hope to keep following. So far, Monty and Tabitha are gearing up to head deeper into the Zone, Louise and co are preparing for another job – which is going to be great 'fun' for them, don't worry – and Alexander is having a great time in Zone-plagued Halkeginia._

 _So stay tuned, because there will be plenty more coming from all different points of view. Soon, we'll be visiting the lovely city of Tristania, where we'll get to see how things have been going there, and how some people are coping with Louise's disappearance._

 _Also, I'd like to clear something up about Tiffania and Matilda's situation. In LN canon, Tiffania lives in the small village of Westwood where she takes care of a whole lot of orphaned children, and she and Matilda know each other well. In the anime, however, Tiffania lives alone in a cabin in the woods, and there was no real evidence that she and Matilda knew each other at all, unless I'm forgetting something. In this story I'm going to be drawing from both the LN and the anime. Tiffania and Matilda are close, but there are no orphans to speak of. I've got plans for a nearby village called Westwood, which will make its appearance soon._

 _Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and I know most of you are going to definitely enjoy the next one. I don't know if I've said this before, but please, feel free to point out anything I've done that is stupid, or doesn't make sense. It helps me improve as a writer, and it helps the story improve overall. I may or may not be asking around for a beta reader soon._

 _Until next time._


	18. The Life of a Stalker VII

_The Life of a Stalker VII_

 _Zaton_

 _07:24_

Louise let out a long yawn, feeling rather dead on her feet. Standing inside the room Owl used for his trading, a bed had never felt more appealing.

Even sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair would have sufficed.

Beside her, Kirche looked equally as dragged out. After their shifts had ended at 5:00AM they had only managed to get less than two hours of rest, which was certainly not enough to be trekking around the Zone, but Siesta wasn't having any of it. The dark-haired girl claimed to have had been awake for over forty-eight hours once when she had gotten separated from her group in an underground ruin, so she had told Kirche and Louise they should just suck it up.

Speaking of Siesta, she was still nowhere to be seen. Kirche and Louise had been waiting for the better part of ten minutes now while Owl was rummaging around in his back room.

Louise felt that Owl could have at least had a chair in here or something. She really just wanted to get off her feet and close her eyes for a few minutes.

"Okay! I found him!" Siesta said loudly, announcing her presence. Behind her, Grouse walked into the room. Louise noticed that his shotgun was slung across his back while in his hands was a short-barreled Kalashnikov frighteningly similar to the one she had sold off to Owl.

In fact, when she noticed the familiar scratches along the dust cover she was sure it was actually the same gun. If she had known Grouse was in the market for a gun like that, she could have sold it directly to him instead for what was surely a much better price than what Owl had likely charged him. It seemed their small group would have its fair share of Kalashnikov's going around.

"Welcome to the party," Kirche greeted glumly, leaning on Owl's countertop.

Grouse snorted, looking to Siesta. "I didn't know we were going to work with a couple of zombies."

Louise glared, while Siesta laughed.

"Oh they're just grumpy because they didn't get enough beauty sleep," Siesta said, approaching the girls. She held out two tall cans for them to take. "Here. It'll help wake you up."

Grouse eyed the cans as Louise and Kirche accepted them. Energy drinks? "Yeah, sure. At least until they crash."

"It'll be fine, it'll be fine," Siesta assured, flapping a hand dismissively. She turned to Louise as she cracked open her can. "So where's Owl?"

"In the back," Louise answered, taking a sip from the drink. She scrunched her face. While it wasn't unpleasant, it was definitely different. "Getting some maps I think."

"Maps?" Grouse asked, furrowing his brow. "We know our way around Zaton well enough, we don't need maps."

"I think it's for something else," Kirche pointed out, taking another generous swig from the can. She quickly finished the drink off, bringing the can up to eye level to inspect it. "I rather like this, actually."

Siesta chuckled. "I have another one if you want it."

Placing the empty can down on the countertop Kirche held out her hand with a shrug. "Well, alright."

Kirche didn't notice, but both Louise and Grouse saw the cat-like grin crossing Siesta's face. Despite not knowing what she was up to, Louise couldn't help but sigh at the ex-maid's immaturity.

Louise then decided to question something that she had taken note of the day before. "Siesta, where's your Mosin?" She asked.

"Oh, that?" Siesta said, handing Kirche her second energy drink. "I stashed it while you guys were screwing around on deck."

Louise clicked her tongue. She and Kirche hadn't been 'screwing around' they were doing honest work! Ignoring that, Louise questioned further. "You stashed it?"

"Yeah," the ex-maid nodded. "It's too much trouble to carry around two big rifles at the same time, so I stashed it."

"Stashed meaning?" Kirche asked, eagerly sipping from her drink.

Siesta rolled her eyes. "I hid the thing away somewhere."

"Because it was too heavy to carry?"

"Well, that's one reason," Siesta said. "And because, what if one day I get screwed over and I have nothing left? Now I have a rifle I can go get so I can make the assholes that screwed me over regret it."

Experienced stalkers tended to make stashes of weapons, ammunition, or other supplies for occasions like Siesta had described. In the Zone you could never predict what was going to happen next. Most of Siesta's stashes were on the other side of the barrier, and while she didn't mind a long walk, the lengthy journey would be nearly impossible if she were unarmed.

Owl emerged from his back room with a rectangular sheet of paper in hand. He looked over the stalkers collected before him. "So, the four of you?"

There was a smattering of nods and grunts of agreement from the stalkers.

"Alright," the rat-faced man began. "So here's what's happening. A generous client of mine is interested in a set of documents supposedly located in an abandoned underground facility here in Zaton."

Siesta didn't like the sound of this already, and neither did Grouse. In both their experiences, anything underground was about a dozen times more unpleasant than what was roaming around on the surface.

Owl continued, ignoring the unenthusiastic looks he was receiving. "The facility itself is located underneath the electrical substation to the south."

Upon hearing this the group standing before Owl let out a cacophony of groans, sighs, and muffled swears. They all knew about the substation. It was deep into bandit territory, and was also rumored to be teeming with anomalies of all kinds.

"Really?" Siesta said, sighing in an annoyed manner. "It actually just had to be there though, didn't it?"

"Of course," Grouse scoffed, shifting his Kalashnikov. "I heard there was a poltergeist roaming around that area."

"Yeah, I heard that too."

Louise furrowed her brow. "What exactly is a poltergeist? Is it what I think it is?"

"Pretty much," Siesta replied. She turned to Grouse. "Hey, I heard there's ones that can shoot fire everywhere."

"Really?" Grouse said, his brow raising. "Where did you hear that?"

"I don't remember. I think in the bar at Rostok maybe, ages ago."

"Anyway," Owl cut in, eager to get the conversation back on track. "I'm aware of what's happening at the substation, and I may have a better route than moving exposed through the bandit's territory."

Owl slapped down the sheet of paper for the group to see. Everybody leaned in.

"As some of you may know," Owl began, all too aware of the lack of experience Louise and Kirche had in the Zone. "Many of the places around the Zone are connected underground, creating an expansive network between facilities."

The underground networks were created for the benefit of the scientists working illegally within the Zone's boundaries during the 1990's and early 2000's. Having facilities connected underneath the surface allowed equipment and supplies to be moved around with minimal travel along roadways. Construction for most underground structures had begun during the late 1980's, and the majority of operations had been in full swing by the mid-nineties.

Of course, there were rumors of secret underground labs that even predated the 1986 disaster, and while it may or may not have been true there was no concrete evidence to support it.

Owl pointed out an area on the map with his finger. It didn't take long for Siesta and Grouse to realize that this map didn't detail the surface at all. Instead, it outlined a handful of underground structures. "This is Zaton, here. Over here, is the antenna complex that you're all so familiar with."

Grouse eyed the map closely, quickly becoming oriented. There were expansive underground structures underneath the antenna complex, electrical substation, and even the ranger station. Twisting outlines on the map showed that all three were interconnected by long underground passages, likely meant to be traversed by vehicle.

"As you can see," Owl continued, tracing the tunnels with his finger. "The antenna complex and the substation are connected by this long supply tunnel. It was used to transport materials, supplies, things like that."

"Okay, I get it," Grouse said, nodding. The tone in his voice told that he was about to point out a critical problem with Owl's plan. "But in the antenna complex the tunnel you're talking about is blocked by a welded gate, oh and yeah, we freaking nerve-gassed that place a couple of weeks ago."

That situation sprung to everybody's mind quickly.

"Oh yeah," Siesta remarked in mock realization. "I think I remember doing something insane like that."

Owl sighed. "Listen, that gas you used was Perin B3. That stuff is supposed to dissipate in open air in around twenty- four hours. Since you did that over two weeks ago it should be mostly safe. Besides, that isn't where I'm saying you should go in."

Louise crossed her arms. It should be safe? Should be mostly safe? She had spent enough time in the Zone to know that 'should' didn't necessarily mean that it 'was'. She opted to continue listening before interrupting. Grouse and Siesta seemed to have taken up that role quite nicely anyway.

"Here," Owl pointed out on the map, south of the antenna complex next to the outlined tunnel. "There's a surface access that'll get you into the tunnel."

"Well if that's true, then we'll go in with gas masks. Just to be safe," Grouse said, still looking the map over closely.

"Fine," Siesta grunted. "But if I come out of there with my lungs hanging out of my ass I'm going to be pretty pissed off."

Kirche let out a snort of laughter at Siesta's vulgarity, while Grouse chuckled and shook his head. Louise remained silent, only sparing Siesta a glance.

"Right, so this access point. What would we be looking for?" Grouse asked.

"Well there's no sewer in that area but there's a manhole cover on the road," Owl explained. "It should be easy to find. It'll be the only one around."

Siesta nodded to herself. That definitely seemed like a better option. It also seemed like Owl had been doing his homework, which wasn't at all surprising coming from him.

The rat-faced trader continued, happy to not be interrupted again. He pointed out the area underneath the substation. "Here, there's a vehicle docking bay. The entrance to the place you're looking for is somewhere in this area. Now, like with all of these kinds of places the entrance won't be immediately obvious. This particular place was kept secret from the rest of the facilities in the area."

Siesta scoffed. "A secret underground facility kept secret from the other secret underground facilities?"

"Basically."

"Do you know what any of these places were actually for?" Siesta asked, curious.

"Well underneath the antenna complex was some really unpleasant shit, lots of medical experimentation and stuff like that. The facility underneath the substation was a testing workshop for experimental weapons."

Siesta pursed her lips, satisfied with the answer.

"The documents you're looking for are concerning a project titled 'Item 62'. I've been assured that they'll be there."

"So who exactly assured you?" Grouse asked.

"Government," Owl stated plainly. "If you're successful, I'm sure you'll all eat well for the next few weeks."

Grouse snorted. "If our government was so generous I wouldn't be stuck here."

"And neither would I," Owl replied. "But they're offering up a lot for this job. It seems pretty important to them."

Siesta figured if the Ukrainian government wanted these documents so badly they should just send in some military to do it, but she knew they wouldn't do something like that without throwing some hapless stalkers into it first. It would cost them nothing if a group of stalkers wound up as mutant food in the underground, and what they were paying to contract those potentially successful stalkers was likely small compared to the resources they'd have to expend to send in a team of Spetsnaz.

It was almost like how the armies in Halkeginia battled, Siesta thought. They put all of the commoners up front while the mages remained safely in the rear.

Siesta turned to the rest of the group. "You guys wanna?"

All of them looked like they didn't care either way. Grouse appeared to be in agreement the most, while Kirche and Louise didn't seem so enthusiastic. Siesta took their silence as acceptance.

"Okay, we're in," Siesta said, turning back to Owl. She reached into her hip pocket, fishing out a bundle of banknotes. "Grab us two gasmasks, would you?"

Owl did as requested, selecting two masks off the wall at random. "Before you go," he said, placing the masks down and accepting Siesta's payment. "You're going to have to get a key card to get inside. Both entrances to the testing workshops are locked electrically."

Siesta passed the jumble of masks hoses and filters off to Louise and Kirche, who in turn eyed them over curiously. "Well where are we going to find that?"

"Ask Cardan."

Siesta furrowed her brow. "Really? That's it?"

"That's it."

"So we just ask the drunk dude then," Grouse scoffed, turning to leave. "Sounds simple enough. Hope you guys are on Cardan's good side, 'cause I'm sure as hell not."

Siesta followed, not bothering to bid the trader farewell. Louise and Kirche followed closely behind. "Well as far as I know I am. What the heck did you do?"

Grouse stopped a fair distance away from Cardan's workshop. "I'll tell you later."

Shrugging, Siesta moved past with Louise and Kirche in tow. Entering Cardan's workshop, they found the stalker in question swabbing the bore of a Simonov carbine. He spared his guests a quick glance.

"What's up?" He asked, sounding bored.

"Weapons testing workshop underneath the substation," Siesta answered almost instantly. "We need the key card for it."

Cardan paused what he was doing and eyed the girls incredulously over his shoulder. "What the hell do you want that for?"

"So... we can get inside?" Kirche said, stating the obvious. She was met with a glare from the gunsmith.

"And what exactly would you need to do inside there?" Cardan asked slowly, turning back to the SKS.

"We have to get some documents. Owl hired us," Siesta explained, crossing her arms. "Are you going to give it to us?"

Sighing, Cardan reached for his toolbox and opened one of the smaller drawers. Extracting the key card, he held it out between his index and middle fingers for Siesta to take.

"Here, take it then. I don't need it," Cardan said. As Siesta moved to accept the card, she couldn't help but think that had

been easier than expected. "The place has been locked up for a pretty long time, so I doubt there's anything crawling around down there."

"Alright," Siesta nodded, pocketing the card. "Sounds good."

"How are you planning on approaching it?"

"Through the tunnels," Siesta explained.

Cardan winced. "Oh, well, good luck with that."

Siesta shrugged, turning away and leaving with Louise and Kirche. As they approached Grouse, Siesta heard Louise scoff behind her.

"Well he was certainly comforting, wasn't he?"

* * *

"Ever get a bad feeling?"

Louise looked to Kirche. Despite her comment, the red-head was practically bouncing on her heels with pent up energy. It seemed the two energy drinks had hit her hard. While Louise was certainly feeling energetic as well, it was definitely less so than the Germanian.

"Kirche, I've got a bad feeling from the moment I wake up, until when I go to sleep," Louise said.

The group had already passed the antenna complex and were now on their way to nearing the gas station. It was somewhere along this stretch of road where their manhole cover was waiting. It was only a matter of running into it.

"So, this apparently sealed gate," Kirche began, referencing the antenna complex. "Why exactly was it, uh, sealed?"

"Well I don't know," the pinkette huffed. "Maybe the people on the other side wanted to keep the bloodsuckers out."

A laugh came from the front of the group. Siesta looked over her shoulder, smirking. "That's just wishful thinking, Louise."

"Thank you, so much," Louise replied sarcastically. "You inspire confidence time and time again."

Siesta let the long length of rusty rebar she was carrying drag along the road for a moment before she swung it upward so it could rest on her shoulder.

"Seriously, where is this thing?" Siesta grumbled. She looked to Grouse. "Do you think we might have passed it?"

"No," Grouse answered.

"You seem sure of yourself," Siesta snorted. "What, were you looking down at the freakin' road this entire time?"

Grouse scoffed, pointing ahead with the barrel of his Kalashnikov. "It's just that I can see it."

Looking ahead, Siesta laid eyes on the manhole cover as well. "Oh."

It didn't take the group long to find themselves standing around the manhole cover. The circular slap of iron was rusty in color and had a waffle pattern etched into its surface. Siesta jabbed the end of the rebar through one of the two holes, working the length of metal until the cover came free. Crouching, Grouse slid the cover away to reveal the pitch black abyss waiting below.

Siesta tossed the rebar away carelessly, hearing it ring on the pavement. "Might as well just get to it."

The rest of the stalkers wordlessly agreed, making sure their weapons were ready and prematurely activating flashlights for what was going to be an undoubtedly dark journey. Louise and Kirche, both without any kind of rail systems to mount lights on their weapons had settled on taping small flashlights to the forends of their rifles with generous amounts of black insulated tape.

Siesta had told them that in the event of a long period of sustained fire the tape might end up melting, but despite saying that she had done something similar to her own G3A3 forward of the charging handle. Grouse had a flashlight on his pump-action and at the same time a light was snugly secured to his vest.

They all worked at donning their respective gas masks, intent on being on the safe side of things. Securing her mask, Louise itched with irritation with how uncomfortable it was. Glancing around at her comrades, she found that the masks served to give them all a rather inhuman appearance.

Louise felt the mask might have even made her look intimidating if she weren't so short.

"Alright," Grouse began, his voice muffled behind his mask. His Kalashnikov hung from its sling as he approached the opening. "I'll go down first. Give me some light."

Siesta obliged, crouching down next to the hole. Instead of pointing the muzzle of her rifle unsafely downward in Grouse's direction she removed a small LED flashlight from a pouch on her vest to light the stalkers path.

"Just how many of those do you have?" Kirche asked, scoffing.

Siesta laughed. "Kirche, you should know this by now. There are three things essential to a stalker's survival: a flashlight, a gun, and another flashlight."

"Every time you say something like that it's a different three things," Louise pointed out, keeping watch with her rifle at her shoulder.

While Kirche laughed, Siesta opted to raise a single finger over her shoulder. "Shut up, Louise," she said.

They heard Grouse's voice drift upward, letting them know he had reached the bottom. Siesta turned to the red-head of the group.

"You're next. Down the rabbit hole you go."

Kirche slung her AKM over her shoulder and unsteadily descended into the manhole while muttering her acquired distaste for ladders of any kind.

"Down the rabbit hole?" Louise scoffed, still keeping watch. "That's cute. Did you make that up just then?"

"No," Siesta answered. "Somebody said it to me once."

"Who?"

"Shit, I don't know," the dark-haired stalker chuckled. "I don't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday."

Louise furrowed her brow behind her gasmask. She couldn't remember what she had eaten for breakfast yesterday either. She then realized that she had slept through that portion of the day because of her late night shift. Wasn't breakfast relative, though?

Kirche called up and without having to be told, Louise slung the AK-74 across her back and moved to descend into the claustrophobic hole.

"See you at the bottom," Siesta commented.

Louise didn't reply, instead she kept her attention on the rusted rungs mounted into the concrete. When she reached the bottom she called up to Siesta.

Siesta, the last to make the descent, climbed down into the hole. She reached a hand out, finding the manhole cover and sliding back in place. She suddenly found herself in complete darkness.

"Louise, are you still down there?" Siesta called out.

"Yes!"

"Give me some light, would you? I can't see shit."

Siesta found herself illuminated. Sure of her footing, she swiftly made her way down the ladder. Reaching the bottom, she found Louise standing idly in the narrow passage. Siesta's eyes drifted down to the pinkette's rifle.

"Were you like, pointing that thing up at me just then?" Siesta asked.

"No," Louise answered.

"Then what flashlight were you using?"

"I was pointing it past you."

"Oh come on, that's just as bad!"

"Well what else was I supposed to use?" Louise growled.

"Whatever, whatever," Siesta said, flapping her hand. Being that there was only one way to go in the inky black of the narrow passageway, she moved past the pinkette to where she could see flashlights darting about ahead. She stopped behind Kirche, who had stopped behind Grouse. From what Siesta could see Grouse was standing at a metal door that marked the end of the passage.

"We might have an issue," Kirche greeted, looking over her shoulder toward Siesta.

"Is that so?" Siesta said.

"It is so, actually," Grouse grumbled.

Siesta shuffled past the Germanian. Grasping the handle, Grouse jiggled the door to show that it had some give but it wouldn't be opening any time soon.

"Brilliant," Louise commented from the back.

Grouse eyed Siesta through his mask. "I tried kicking it and ramming into it with my shoulder. Didn't work. I think I'm going to be feeling it tomorrow morning though."

"Shit," Siesta swore.

"Yeah," Grouse nodded. "So I guess we either go through the antenna complex, or go above ground directly to the substation. Or maybe we could just blow it open. Have you got any grenades?"

"I've got one," Siesta replied. "I was kind of saving it for a special occasion."

"Yeah? Like?"

"My birthday party."

"So, we're just going to blow up the door then?" Kirche asked.

"Yep," Siesta replied, brandishing her single anti-personnel explosive.

"But down here in this little passageway?" Louise said apprehensively. "That feels kind of... um..."

"Suicidal?" Kirche offered.

"Yes, suicidal."

Siesta turned to face the girls. "Well obviously we're not going to set it off while we're still down here. We'll just climb back up the ladder."

"But you put the cover back in place," Louise pointed out.

"It's not locked or anything, it's just sitting there," Siesta said, giving the grenade a toss and catching it. Louise and Kirche both flinched at the action.

"How do you plan on pulling the pin?" Grouse asked.

Siesta turned back to the man while giving the grenade another couple tosses in thought. Soon, a smile spread behind her mask. "I've got an idea," she said.

A few minutes later, Siesta found herself alone in the passage with her plan ready to be put into motion. The grenade was attached to the door's handle with a few loops of tape borrowed from the forend of Louise's rifle and Siesta's rope was fed through the grenade's pin and tied off. Standing at the end of her rope, Siesta was only feet from the ladder. Above, the others stood around the manhole observing.

Siesta took up the slack on the rope and then gave it a sharp tug. It came free easily, and from the metallic clinging down the passageway she knew the grenade's safety lever had dropped to the floor. She abandoned the rope and turned on her heel, making for the ladder. The area illuminated by flashlights from above, Siesta jumped onto the ladder and climbed quickly to get out of the way of any potential shrapnel speeding down the passageway.

She hadn't climbed far when the grenade exploded. The dark passage was illuminated by a split-second flash, and above, dust kicked up by the explosion lazily drifted upward out of the manhole's opening.

Finding that she was still in one piece, Siesta descended back down into the passage. The path ahead illuminated by the flashlight on her rifle, she found that the grenade had its intended effect. The metal door stood ajar, heavily dented and looking rather concave. She coiled her rope into a neat bundle, finding that one end was much more frayed than before.

Shining her flashlight, Siesta saw that on the other side of the doorway the tunnel was wide enough for two lanes of traffic and even tall enough for large truck to pass through. She opted to wait for the others to assemble behind her.

"Well," Kirche remarked, walking up behind Siesta. "If there's anything down here, it definitely knows we're here now."

"Oh don't you worry. There's always something lurking around in places like this," Siesta advised.

Seeing that Grouse, Kirche, and Louise were all waiting behind her, Siesta swiftly moved through the doorway and into the tunnel with her rifle ready, finding that only more darkness awaited her. This particular area of the tunnel looked to be some kind of intersection. Three available paths were immediately visible. Pipes and conduits lined the walls while light fixtures hung periodically from the ceiling. If there were any power still running, the bulbs would have died out ages ago.

Kirche and Grouse moved into the tunnel after Siesta, with Louise being the last. As the pinkette emerged into the tunnel, she gently pushed the door further open. Louise squeaked in surprise while everybody else jumped to attention as the door came loose from its hinges and slammed loudly to the floor. Everybody stared at Louise for a moment, who grew sheepish under their stares.

"Nice," Siesta commented dryly.

Louise's gasmask covered face turned to face her. Siesta couldn't see the pinkette's face, but she knew she was being glared at.

"Shut up," was Louise's response.

Grouse looked down all three tunnels, getting his bearings. He pointed to the left. "That way should go back to the antenna complex." He pointed ahead. "And I'm guessing that goes out towards the ranger station, so we should go this way," he finished, pointing to the right.

Siesta thought for a moment. "Yeah," she agreed. "That sounds right."

The group started off, the only light from their darting flashlights and the only sounds their footsteps and jingling equipment. After a few solid minutes of walking in silence the more experienced stalkers began to feel like something was off.

"Nothings tried to eat us yet," Siesta commented to Grouse.

"Kind of noticed, yeah."

"I think something's up."

Louise scoffed. "Would you rather if something did try and eat us?"

"I think this is rather nice, actually," Kirche said. "Nothing's trying to eat us and nobody's trying to shoot us."

"I'm going to have to agree with your friends on this one," Grouse chuckled. "Maybe we just caught a lucky break."

"Grouse, that never happens, come on," Siesta grunted back.

Just as Louise had been about to add something else her foot nudged a small object, sending it clinking across the floor. Everybody stopped as Siesta caught the small object underneath her boot. She bent down and picked up the spent casing from the floor.

"Five-five-six," Siesta observed, tossing the casing away carelessly.

Observing the floor around them the group noticed more spent casings lying about, glinting under the glare of the flashlights. Siesta swept her the muzzle of her rifle up along the wall to her right, finding bullet holes in the concrete.

"Are we just seeing this now? Or does it start right here?" Louise asked worriedly, keeping her rifle ready.

"I think it starts around here," Grouse replied, shining his light back the way they came.

"Somebody had a party down here," Siesta said, observing more casings. Nearby, she could see an empty STANAG pattern magazine. "They're all five-five-six as far as I can tell."

"I-I see something ahead," Kirche said nervously, her AKM to her shoulder. Everybody snapped to attention, rifles ready. Their lights illuminated the same thing Kirche's had, a shape on the floor.

"I think it's a body," Siesta pointed out, tenderly advancing with her G3 at her shoulder. As she advanced with the others close behind she noticed spatters of dried blood leading up to the corpse, which upon close observation was found to be the corpse of a snork.

"Snorks," Grouse spat. "Shit, I hate those things."

Siesta saw that the snork was indeed expired, its torso riddled with neat little holes. The worrying thing was that the corpse was very recent.

"Grouse, this is fresh," Siesta said lowly, crouching next to the dead snork.

Grouse observed, kneeling. Siesta heard him sigh through his mask. "It happened today."

"Shit," Siesta swore, standing. She trusted in the ex-detective's judgement.

Louise, having never actually seen a snork before, stepped closer and observed the creature up and down. She had been hoping it would have been the same as the creature she and Kirche had encountered near the Oakpine, but it wasn't. The limbs were all the correct sizes and the mouth exposed from under the ratty gasmask looked far more human. She prodded at the mask with the barrel, the remains of which still covered the upper portion of the snork's face. It didn't budge, securely attached to the snork's head.

"You'd need a knife to get that off," Grouse pointed out, seeing what Louise may have been trying to do.

"I just... kind of wanted to see how human it looked," Louise admitted. If this had been three weeks ago she would have never dreamed of such a thing. In fact, at the sight of a body like this she probably would have retched at the sight and then put as much distance between it and herself as she could. Being in a place where violence and death was the norm was quickly desensitizing her.

Louise couldn't help but hate the thought of being used to things like this. If she ever got back to Tristain she knew things like this would always haunt her dreams.

"You don't want to," Grouse said, standing up.

"Why?" Kirche asked. "What's it look like? Is it ugly or something?"

"Of course it's ugly," Siesta scoffed. "The gas mask is physically attached to its freaking face."

Leaving the snork behind the group continued down the tunnel. They didn't get far before they encountered more expired snorks. Soon enough they came upon their first human corpse, brutally mauled by the snorks. They stopped. The body itself didn't appear to be a bandit judging from the woodland camouflage, ballistic vest, and kevlar helmet. The rifle lying nearby appeared to be an M4 carbine type arrangement.

"Mercs?" Siesta grumbled. "Just had to be mercs didn't it?"

"What could have gone on down here?" Kirche asked aloud, mostly to herself. The apprehension in her voice didn't go unnoticed. The tunnel around them was thick with the mutated dead.

"Snorks and people don't really get along," Siesta pointed out.

Louise scoffed, although her muffled voice was still laced with nervousness. "Would they get along with anything?"

"Yeah, with the zombies," Grouse replied.

Both Louise and Kirche turned to the man with the latter speaking up. "...Really?"

"Oddly enough, yes."

"We should keep moving," Siesta said, motioning ahead with her G3A3. "And stay alert. This guy's friends might still be hanging around."

Grouse nodded, starting off behind Siesta. "Hopefully they were smart and ran their asses out of here."

Louise contemplated what the man had said as she followed. "Then what does that make us?"

"Pretty dumb I guess," Siesta replied dryly. "But we're being paid well at least."

The group continued through the tunnel, the deceased snorks and spent casings thinning out. As they walked, Louise allowed her mind to wander for a few moments.

If people were being pulled from Halkeginia to here in the Zone, then the opposite must have been possible, right? These thoughts had crossed her mind a few times already, but she couldn't help but consider the ramifications of what might be happening. What Kirche had told her about the rumors of mutants and the presence of anomalies around the Academy of Magic only acted as proof of her theory.

If random stalkers were being brought to Halkeginia she could only wonder at the kinds of chaos they might end up causing by wandering around toting automatic weapons in an underdeveloped world. The chaos hungry bloodsuckers and raging pseudogiants would cause would likely be far worse.

What would even change if they managed to find a way to get back to Tristain? If her thoughts were true, then being in Tristain wouldn't be much different than being in the Zone. She prayed that the lands of the Valliére estate were still safe, and her family would remain unharmed. They had their differences, especially in regards to her eldest sister Éléonore due to her unique magical ability, but she would never wish harm on any of them.

She hoped that at least Cattleya's health was improving.

Louise was cut from her thoughts as the tunnel suddenly opened up into a massive room. In here rows of vehicles were parked, left abandoned long ago. There weren't any small cars or jeeps among them, mostly large flatbed cargo trucks and a generous helping of olive green BTR-80s. At the far end of the room a wide passaged angled upward, with light from the surface clearly filtering in to cast a dim glow through most of the area. Right now it was the most obvious way for all of these vehicles to have even gotten down here.

"This must be that vehicle docking bay then," Grouse observed, sweeping his light over the area. "Now all we have to do is find that entrance to the testing workshops, then we'll be set."

"Split up?" Siesta suggested. "Teams of two?"

Grouse thought for a moment. "Yeah, alright. You take Louise and I'll take Kirche. Can't leave the rookies alone."

Siesta nodded in agreement. "Good call."

They had been about to split apart when Siesta noticed something alarming in the glow of her flashlight. Further ahead, a shape had darted behind the cover of a BTR when her light had passed over. Her stomach immediately knotted.

The dead mercenary's friends were most certainly still hanging around.

"Shit!" Siesta swore, realizing an attack was imminent. "Get behind something!"

Siesta grabbed Kirche and pulled her behind a nearby BTR just as the bullets began flying. Projectiles passed frighteningly close, sparks flying as they ricocheted off the BTR's armored surface in the low light. Grouse let off a deafening automatic burst as he followed, fireballs spitting from the Kalashnikov's muzzle.

In her panic, Louise had gotten herself separated from the rest of her group. She dived to the floor in the other direction, sliding on the grimy floor into the cover of a flatbed truck. Desperately making herself as small as possible she huddled up behind the truck's front wheel hub. Bullets hit dangerously close, bouncing off the concrete floor and punching cleanly through the truck's metal body. The horrifying sounds of supersonic lead passing close and impacting all around her were barely audible over the roar of gunfire echoing off the walls.

Grouse let off another blind burst over the BTR's nose, expending the rest of the magazine. Fire was quickly returned,

attracted by the beacon his muzzle was letting out. Under pressure, he unlocked the magazine and simply let it fall to the floor. After locking in a fresh thirty rounds, he followed Siesta's example and switched off his light.

Siesta herself had quickly dropped to her belly, ripping her gasmask off as she aimed between the wheels of the metal behemoth. She only had a narrow window of view, but across the room in the dark she could see the bright orange of a muzzle flash. She fired in semi-automatic, her rifle punching angrily at her shoulder. In the confined space beneath the BTR she had no idea the effect her rounds were having, but she was confident they were at least keeping heads down.

At the rear of the BTR, Kirche clutched her AKM to her chest as she tried to get her breathing under control. She pressed her back hard against the metal hull, screwing her eyes shut as she wondered what she had done to deserve this kind of special hell. Her mask suddenly felt incredibly suffocating, and the peripheral vision the lenses blocked out caused a brief sensation of claustrophobia. Seeing as Siesta had already done it, she carelessly tore the mask from her head and let it hand from the filter hose.

Barely audible, she heard muffled footfalls nearby. She leaned out around the stern of the machine and was horrified to find her light illuminating a single mercenary moving in an attempt at a flanking manoeuvre. The man barely had time to raise his rifle in defence before Kirche hastily slammed down hard on the Kalashnikov's trigger, slinging out a haphazard automatic burst.

He fell to the floor as bullets raked across his armored torso. Squirming, he cried out for a moment until Kirche silenced him with another burst. Bullets came screaming past from farther ahead, causing Kirche to quickly duck back into cover. There, she clutched her rifle to her chest again, jumping and flinching as bullets hit close to her feet.

She didn't really want to believe it, but Kirche knew she had definitely just killed that man. She didn't have time to contemplate her actions. She shrieked as bullets came closer, hitting the BTR's body and whirring off in random directions.

Louise leapt up from her position, moving farther down the length of the truck where the row of similar vehicles offered more cover. Bullets nipped at the floor and the truck's body as she moved, causing her to scuttle to a halt behind the vehicle's double axel. Taking a moment to steady herself she worked off her mask, letting it hang from her chest by its filter hose. She tenderly peeked above the trucks flat bed, unable to see much of anything past the cab of the next truck.

She raised her rifle, firing in semi-automatic towards the muzzle flashes she could actually see. It was a mere split second before rounds came her way again. Louise threw herself backward onto the floor, praying desperately that she wouldn't be hit.

It didn't take long for her to realize the problem as she crawled back to the truck. The AK-74's muzzle brake did well to disperse the weapon's flash and to lessen recoil, but her flashlight must have seemed like a gigantic spotlight to the people firing at her. She shakily reached up, flicking off the device just as an idea formed in her head.

Louise cried in fright as somebody suddenly slid up next to her. She was immediately relieved to see Siesta nearby.

"Hey! How's your day going so far!?" Siesta greeted loudly over the gunfire.

Louise sputtered in disbelief. "H-how can you even say something like that right now!? We're being bloody shot at!"

"Yeah I noticed!" Siesta shouted back, swapping magazines. She slammed down on the charging handle, sending it home. "I've got an idea!"

Louise began hastily removing the tape holding the flashlight to her rifle. "What is it then!?"

"We're gonna go around and get them from the side!" Siesta replied. She pointed out the high volume of fire currently coming from both Grouse and Kirche. "The others are covering us so... Louise, the hell are you doing!?"

"I'm taking off my flashlight!"

"What the heck for!?"

"It's how they knew where I was!" Louise replied, the flashlight coming free. "If I just turn it on and leave it somewhere that's where they'll think I am!"

Siesta raised her brow, feeling that was actually pretty smart of Louise to think of doing something like that. "Okay, quick! Do it!"

Louise flicked the light on, placing it on the truck's bed. Both she and Siesta quickly scurried away as bullets came flying.

Louise's little idea was working for now, but it wouldn't last forever.

"Kirche!" Grouse called out, reloading. "Kirche! Turn your damn light off!"

Kirche let off another handful of rounds. "What!? What did you say!?"

"Turn your light off! They can see where you are!"

She glanced towards the man, doing a double take as she flicked the beam off. "Wha- where's Siesta gone!?"

"She's flanking with Louise, keep firing!"

Louise and Siesta leapfrogged from vehicle to vehicle, steadily drawing closer to where the enemy fire was coming from. Peeking around the back of a truck, Siesta make out the shapes of their enemy in the dim light as the occasional flashes from their rifles served to aid her.

"Stay here, get ready to fire," Siesta ordered, leaning in close. She quickly darted to the next truck.

Crouching, Siesta turned her flashlight on to fully illuminate their enemies. They immediately noticed, but they hardly had the chance to react as Louise and Siesta both opened fire. The big surprise to the girls was that there were only three of them. Somehow, they had both expected more. That number quickly dwindled down as two fell to the floor while the third attempted to fall back.

Exposing himself, the remaining mercenary took a flurry of rounds to the back from Grouse. He hit the floor with a solid thump, his rifle clattering nearby.

The entire vehicle bay was now bathed in a sudden silence. Louise stayed still, her rifle shaking in her hands as she kept it ready. She wondered, did this actually just happen? It all seemed so surreal, but they had just fought these people for what seemed like absolutely no reason. Had they actually just won? She hadn't even fired an entire magazine out of her rifle.

The clacking of swapping magazines echoed out in the silence.

"I think we're clear," Siesta said quietly, rising to a stand. She motioned for Louise to follow, sweeping out with rifles ready. Coming up on the bodies, Louise felt her stomach churn at the sight of the dead.

"Definitely mercs," Siesta observed, nudging at a body with her foot. "Shit."

Grouse appeared, followed by a very rattled looking Kirche. All of the flashlights had come to life again, aside from Louise's.

"Here," Grouse said, approaching Louise. "Your flashlight, or what's left of it anyway."

Louise accepted it, finding that a bullet had smashed through the lens and had blown straight through the device. It was just garbage now, so she just let it drop to the floor.

Examining the bodies, they found that they were all dressed the same as the mauled corpse they had come upon in the tunnels. Woodland camouflage, ballistic vests, and one PASGT helmet between them. They all appeared to have been killed by shots through the torso that had made it through their armor, aside from one unlucky man who had been wearing nothing on his head. A portion of the side of his skull was missing, exposing a nasty sight.

"Oh... oh God," Kirche muttered, stumbling sideways into a BTR. She tried to hold her vomit back, but it was in vain. The adrenaline overload was too much for her to handle. She emptied her stomach onto the floor.

Siesta approached her, holding her hair back while telling her a handful of times that it was alright. If Kirche had wanted to deny what Siesta was saying, she didn't get the chance. She heaved again.

Louise looked to the corpses around them, deciding that there was no point in trying to look away no matter how much her stomach churned. This wasn't the first time she'd had to kill somebody for her own survival and she knew it wasn't going to be the last either. She was just going to have to accept that things like this were just unavoidable now. It was just part of being a stalker. She sighed, wiping at her forehead.

It was just life in the Zone.

* * *

 _A/N: Bit of a delay between chapters, and I apologize for that._

 _Not much to say, other than the whole underground tunnel thing isn't actually in the game, but I wanted some underground adventures because they're always the best/worst kinds of adventures in the Zone._

 _Anyway, stay tuned for the next chapter for Item 62 adventures and poltergeist fun._


	19. The Life of a Stalker VIII

_The Life of a Stalker VIII_

 _Zaton_

 _10:04_

Siesta placed her hand flat on the surface of the thick steel door. The sudden contact upset the surrounding layer of dust, highlighted in a cloud under the glare of her flashlight. On the wall adjacent to the door, set into the concrete, was a small card reader with a single red LED illuminated. Giving the door another reassuring pat, she nodded confidently.

"This is definitely it," Siesta said, waving her hand in front of her face to disperse the cloud of particles. She turned to the only other person present, Louise.

Louise met the dark-haired stalker's eyes, barely able to discern them behind the shadow the lopsided PASGT helmet cast over her face. Along with a handful of other things, it had been scavenged from the mercenaries. The most notable of their loot were the two M4 carbines hanging from their backs, scavenged with the intention to sell later.

She might have considered taking the weapon for her own, but she felt far more confident with her AK-74. She was used to the Kalashnikov platform and how it functioned, so in her mind that negated any real reason to change rifles. Besides, it was working well enough. People seemed to have the habit of dying when her bullets hit them.

She pushed back the sigh that wanted to escape. The adrenaline from the firefight didn't last long, and it left her feeling rather depressed. She was only just beginning to come to terms with, and get over, what had occurred at the ranger station, now something like this had to go and happen.

Right now, Louise honestly hated her life. Why did those people have to try and kill them? There was just no reason for it, she thought. They hadn't done anything to them. It seemed that was just how things were, shoot first and then ask the questions later.

"Go grab Kirche and Grouse, tell them we found it. I'll wait here."

Surprised, Louise decided to question. "So you're going to wait here by yourself?"

Siesta nodded. "Yeah, don't worry," she reassured. She patted her H&K rifle. "I've got my new best friend here with me."

"Right," Louise said, turning on her heel. She rolled her eyes. "I'll be back in a minute then."

The passage they were in was long and cramped, and would have been pitch black if it weren't for the flashlights. Since Louise's had been broken during their short firefight, Siesta had loaned the pinkette her spare flashlight for the time being.

The sling around the back of her neck, Louise's Kalashnikov hung at her front. One hand wrapped around the rifle's grip, while the other held the flashlight to illuminate her path.

The passage came to an end, intersecting with a wider maintenance tunnel. Here, she turned right. It was a short walk before she came to a rusted metal door, left ajar. The hydraulic cylinder in the door closer mounted above had deteriorated to the point where it simply let the door hang open, rather than closing it automatically.

In the large vehicle bay, Louise found herself alone.

She took a few steps forward, trying to remember the direction Kirche and Grouse had taken.

Hearing a light click from nearby, Louise froze. She had been about to retreat back through the door with her rifle ready, when Grouse stepped out around a truck into the beam of her flashlight. Kirche followed behind, still looking a little pale.

"Jeez, Louise," Grouse commented, cradling his short-barreled AK as he came closer. "I almost shot you."

"That wouldn't have been very nice," Louise replied dryly, letting out a breath of relief at the same time. The click she had heard was likely Grouse flicking the selector on his rifle from 'safe' to 'fire'. "I thought somebody had me, honestly."

Kirche sighed as she stopped. "Did you two have any luck?"

Nodding, Louise motioned to the doorway behind her. "We've found it I believe."

"Great," Grouse breathed. "All we found were some offices and a freaking janitor's closet."

Louise led her two comrades back the way she had come. They soon found Siesta leaning on the door, casually smoking a cigarette.

"This isn't really the time for a smoke break," Grouse pointed out as they neared.

Siesta stared for a moment, her face dimly lit by the burning tobacco. She shrugged. "We won a gunfight, I think I deserve it. You want one?"

"No, thanks," Grouse immediately declined, scoffing. "It took me long enough to quit, I'm not starting up again."

"What about you two?" Siesta asked, looking to Louise and Kirche.

Louise scrunched up her face. "No, that's quite alright."

Kirche was silent for a few seconds. "No, thank you."

Shrugging, Siesta let the cigarette hang between her lips as she pushed off from the door and gave it a solid pat, sending more dust into the air. "Well, here's our door."

Grouse nodded, looking the solid metal structure over. His eyes landed on the card reader. "Let's see if that card works."

Fishing the card out of her back pocket, Siesta held it ready and faced the door. After a brief pause, she eyed Grouse sheepishly over her shoulder. She had moved to scratch her head in emphasis of her ignorance, but the helmet was in the way. Her hand lowered, and her sheepish look grew even more sheepish.

"So... how is this supposed to work?" She asked.

Grouse snorted. "Give it here," he said. Accepting the card, he found which side had the black magnetic stripe before he swiftly ran it through the reader. Slightly surprising to everybody, the reader emitted a happy sounding chime and the red LED changed to a soft blue.

The group watched as the door jolted with a loud clunk as it was unlocked. Aged hydraulic motors began to groan, pulling the heavy door inward.

Grouse stared. "How does this thing even have power right now?"

"I have no idea," Siesta replied, staring as well. "The Zone works in mysterious ways, I guess."

Louise snorted. "Really? Honestly, Siesta."

"What?" Siesta said. "I'm just saying. Maybe a battery or a sparkler fell into the circuit, who knows?"

Grouse cocked an eyebrow, wondering how exactly Siesta knew what an electrical circuit was, considering she claimed to come from a world that didn't have any. She had been here for a while, he reasoned.

As the door grinded through its slow opening, the group held their weapons ready. All of them were perfectly aware that literally anything could come barreling out towards them.

The door stopped, clicking into place when it reached its fully open position. A split-second of silence was all the warning the group had before an ear-shattering buzzer sounded, echoing through the concrete passages.

Siesta, Louise, and Kirche all screamed out in surprise, while Grouse swore loudly.

They all stood perfectly still after that, their flashlights illuminating the passage beyond.

"Just what in the fuck was that about?" Siesta growled.

"I don't know," Grouse replied. "But it scared the living shit out of me."

Looking down to the floor, Siesta scowled. When she had screamed, she had inadvertently spat out her cigarette. "I spit my freaking cigarette out!" She groused. "There was like, half left."

"Forget it," Grouse said, stepping forward. "Let's move. If there's anything hanging around inside this place, it definitely knows we're coming now."

"Yeah," Siesta concurred, stepping down on the still burning cigarette and twisting her foot. She had no idea why there need to be such a loud buzzer to signal that a door had been opened. It may have served a purpose at one point, but now, it just seemed bothersome. "That's just great."

They advanced through the doorway, finding that the passage on the other side looked nearly identical.

Kirche decided to pose a question. "Shouldn't we close the door?"

"No way," Grouse replied, glancing over his shoulder at the red-head. "This door is the only exit we know about. If it's closed and we have to run like hell to get out of here, we'll be screwed if we have to wait for it to open again."

"I am not becoming mutant food today," Siesta commented.

"I wouldn't like to become mutant food on any day," Louise grumbled quietly.

Grouse snorted, but nobody else seemed inclined to speak after that. The passage continued on for a while longer until the group reached a short set of stairs. Ascending, they found that at the top the passaged widened out dramatically.

Louise was quite thankful. She was quickly beginning to grow tired of cramped hallways. She hadn't considered herself claustrophobic before, but in these narrow spaces, and thinking of all the ground that was above her head got her feeling uncomfortable. Unbeknownst to her, everybody was feeling a similar way. Nobody in the Zone enjoyed going underground.

Flashlights illuminated a large set of steel doors blocking the way. Luckily, a man-sized access was set into the left door. They could only hope that it wasn't locked up, or blocked on the other side.

"Why did this just get wider?" Louise asked idly as they approached the door. "I mean, it was narrow back there, so why would they have it wide here? It's not like they could fit anything big down there."

Siesta shrugged. "When I wonder about weird things like that, I usually just settle on 'I don't know why, and I don't care'."

"Words to live by," Grouse snorted. Louise only scoffed, shaking her head.

Grouse stood on one side of the door, while Siesta stood at the other. They both held their weapons ready.

"Ready?" Grouse asked.

Siesta nodded. "Do it."

Louise and Kirche both wondered, 'do what?' The answer came quickly when Grouse roughly pushed the door open, rushing through with Siesta right on his tail.

The two stopped right on the other side of the door, Siesta pointing her rifle to the right, while Grouse pointed his to the left. The both stayed that way for a few moments, ready to fire on anything that so much as moved. It didn't take them long to lower their guns as they took in the room.

"Whoa," was all Siesta could say.

"Whoa?" Louise parroted, stepping through the doorway. "What do you mean..." The pinkette trailed off, finishing her sentence how she first intended, although it was with a definite change in tone. "...Whoa."

Kirche walked through the door last, having a similar reaction.

The first room to come to any of their minds was 'huge'. The room was massive, not quite as wide as the vehicle docking bay, but it had more length, and much more height.

Angling her light upward, Kirche could barely see the beams making up the ceiling supports.

The next glaringly obvious thing was the sizeable cart sitting on a set of train tracks that extended the entire length of the room. Atop the cart itself was a massive slab of rusted metal, kept secure and upright with taught steel cables. Nearly half a foot thick, the metal had watermelon-sized holes penetrating all of the way through, giving it the appearance of a rusty slice of Swiss cheese.

Above, on the other side of the room, observation rooms jutted out from the wall in balcony-esque structures. Like nearly everything that was visible, the shatter resistant windows were coated with a generous helping of dust and grime.

To the group's left, at the end of the room, a large portion of the wall had been sectioned out, bordered with reflective warning stripes that surrounded numerous hardened ceramic panels. The panels themselves, while extremely durable, showed signs of hefty damage that all coincided with the holes in the slab of metal. Near the panels, a small open doorway led to a set of twisting stairs, granting access to the observation rooms and offices above.

At the other end of the room there was a massive red door, striped with warning tape along the bottom. It had a large square window cut into the middle, and the door itself appeared to be left halfway open, or it had just gotten stuck that way.

Near the ceiling, a mobile crane was mounted to rails that spanned from one wall to the other. The crane's hook dangled lazily over the rusted Swiss-cheesed metal, and it didn't look to be in any condition to be doing any lifting. Insulated cables stretched across the roof and walls, drooping between their supports. Ventilation ducts seemed to go in whatever direction they pleased, although one section had detached itself and was now resting on the floor in a heap.

So far, the only living things around appeared to be Louise, Siesta, Grouse, and Kirche. The place was completely deserted, and by the looks of the dust gathered, it hadn't been touched since everybody had left.

"Split up again?" Grouse suggested. He pointed towards the stairs. "I'll check around upstairs for those documents."

Siesta nodded, looking to her right. "Yeah. I'll go look over here."

Louise and Kirche were both left, seemingly forgotten.

"Do you want to stay together?" Louise asked, glancing over at the Germanian.

Kirche's answer came almost instantly. "Yes."

Strolling down the length of the tracks, Siesta came to the large red door. She ducked underneath, feeling a twinge of fear that the door may come crashing down on her for some reason or another. She stopped, thoroughly confused at what she was seeing now.

Directly in front of her, mounted securely atop a sturdy set of brackets and supports, was... something. That was about all Siesta could make of it, but it had the obvious appearance to be some sort of gigantic weapon. The body was a heavy- looking mass of angular steel, with numerous thick cables draping down from the ceiling to connect in a panel on the side. The body extended forward into a shroud, where the long barrel protruded out. Half a dozen coils of copper wire were spaced evenly along the length of the barrel, encased in thick housings and interconnected with bright yellow cables.

Siesta looked back, to the red door with the square cut into the middle. If it were completely lowered, she realized that the barrel of this hefty-looking weapon would point right through it. Was this thing meant to fire through the hole, and right into that giant section of metal? If that was the case, whatever had come out of it had burrowed straight through the metal, and into the ceramic plating beyond.

Siesta was sure that whatever this thing was, it definitely wasn't a pleasant thing to have shot at you. All in all, if it were functioning, it would have ranked fairly high in her list of 'things that could ruin your day'.

Stirring up more dust, Siesta swiftly moved past. To her right was a raised concrete platform, bordered by railing covered in more yellow and black warning stripes. She ascended the handful of stairs. Tall electrical panel boxes sat against the wall with dozens of small analog gauges set into the steel, and against the railing, several control panels were present with more gauges and various readouts and switches dotting their surfaces.

The controls and gauges meant next to nothing to her. These kinds of things were for the book smart people of this world, not people like her. Siesta took pride in her proficiency in the realm of practical applications.

One particular control panel appeared to have been doubling as a desk. Covered in dust, papers and binders were strewn about.

Siesta clicked her tongue, lifting a single sheet of paper. This was going to be troublesome. She dismissed the idea of going to find Grouse and the others, she'd much rather just get started right away. Previously, her ability to read Ukrainian was barely passable. She might have been able to pick out a word or two at best, but thanks to the translation spell offered by Kirche, she now had a much better understanding of the language. Now, it was just as easy as reading Tristainian.

She glared at the sheet in her hand. Being able to read didn't mean she could understand the technical terms that littered the page. Being that this current sheet of paper obviously wasn't what she was looking for, she dropped it away carelessly. Picking up another sheet, Siesta flapped it briefly to remove the dust. Giving it a quick read, she sighed, trying to scratch at her head again, but to no avail.

This one was a memo, simply stating that the downstairs restroom had backed up.

* * *

Still standing near the cart, Kirche's shoulders drooped.

"Shouldn't we, you know, look for this thing as well?" She asked, turning to her pink-haired companion.

Louise sighed. "Would you even know what to look for?"

"Not particularly, no. A book, or some sort of ledger perhaps?"

"I think we should just let Siesta and Grouse handle it," Louise said. "They know better than us about this kind of thing."

"I suppose," was Kirche's glum reply. She looked over Louise's unhappy expression. "Are you okay?"

Louise snorted bitterly. "I should be the one asking you that."

Kirche bit her lip. "I feel sick, still. But it wasn't like we had any other choice, right? They just attacked us."

"Yeah."

The Germanian's frown deepened. "The other day, about what happened at the ranger station, you... are you okay?"

Louise gave her a sideways glance before looking off into the dark. "Every time I close my eyes, I see that man's face. You know, the last one? Right before I..." She trailed off, running a hand through her hair. "It was just the same thing, I guess. They attacked us, so there was no other choice."

Kirche was silent for a moment. "Why did you keep the gun?" She asked.

"I'm not sure," Louise admitted. "A reminder of what I've done, maybe."

"Why would you want something that reminds you of that?"

"I'm not sure," Louise repeated.

Kirche looked away, sweeping the muzzle of her AKM over the walls and ceiling. The silence between them became thick, until it was unceremoniously shattered by a deafening burst of automatic fire. She whirled around.

"Why did you do that!?" Kirche shrieked.

Louise held her rifle to her shoulder. "U-up on the ceiling! I saw something! I-Its eyes were glowing red!"

"What!?"

"Yes! Dozens of eyes!"

* * *

Only moments before, Siesta was still trudging through the mess of paperwork before her. A binder in hand, she had been about to toss it away like the rest until her eyes landed over the title.

 _Item 62._

Her mouth fell open slightly. The entire binder may as well have been made up of banknotes. Her face morphed into a wide grin as she idly flicked through it. Between the pages, a note fell and drifted down onto the control panel. Curious, she brought it up to her face.

Under the glow of her light, she could just make it out.

 _"Documents must be returned to X8, the central laboratory. I will be busy, so deliver them yourself. Use the magnetic card in the Pripyat Yubileiny service center to go down to the second underground floor. You'll work it out from there. The access card is enclosed._

 _N. Lebedev"_

Siesta narrowed her eyes at the name. Lebedev? She couldn't quite place it off the top of her head, but she knew she had heard it somewhere before. She dismissed the thought, tucking the note back inside. Whatever access card the note spoke of didn't appear to be immediately present. Perhaps it was the one currently in Grouse's possession. Swinging off her backpack, she squeezed the binder inside.

She nearly jumped out of her boots when a bout of gunfire echoed off the walls.

"Shit! Shit!" Siesta swore, hastily throwing her backpack on.

* * *

Louise let off another quick burst.

"What was that one for!?" Kirche screamed in fright.

"I saw it again!"

"You're just saying that!"

"No! I swear! It... something moved!"

The two girls whirled when Siesta came sprinting around the cart.

"What the hell is going on?" Siesta growled, clutching her own rifle.

"There's something here!" Louise said, panicked. "It's moving around and watching us!"

Siesta scanned around with her G3A3. "Where is Grouse?" She asked quickly.

"I think he's still up-" Louise began, but was immediately cut off when a sound distinctly similar to a wet slab of meat hitting a hard surface reached her ears. Kirche was the first to scream out in horror.

"There it is!" The Germanian yelled. Everybody followed the beam of light coming from the forend of her Kalashnikov, equally horrified at what they saw. A writhing black mass was slumped on the floor just over a dozen meters away. It shifted about, flowing like retched and clumpy spoiled milk. Numerous red eyes dotted its surface, turning on the girls.

In size, it was about as big as a full-grown grizzly bear.

"What the fuck is that!?" Siesta screamed. She didn't wait for anybody to voice their ideas. She leveled her rifle and jammed down on the trigger in full-automatic. Both Kirche and Louise swiftly joined her, emptying their magazines in only a few seconds.

The bullets easily tore through the slithering creature. When the fire stopped, they all watched in fascinated horror as the holes they had just made closed right back up.

"Okay, run!" Siesta bellowed, turning on her heel. "Just run! Upstairs!"

The trio flew through the doorway at the speed of light, not daring to look back. On the twisting metal stairwell, they met a panicked looking Grouse mid-way.

"What's going on!?" He asked, his shotgun in hand and ready for action.

"No!" Siesta yelled. "Go back up! Just go!"

Grouse didn't need any convincing. If the girls had encountered something they weren't able to kill with bullets, running was the definite route to take.

At the top of the stairs, the group found themselves in a long hallway riddled with garbage and overturned filing cabinets. The doors to the observation rooms lined the wall to their right.

"Please tell me you found the other door!" Siesta asked, running right on Grouse's heels.

"It's just up here!" Grouse replied, increasing his pace.

At the end of the hall, they entered another metal stairwell that twisted around an elevator shaft caged in with rusted chain link fencing. The aged stairs groaned in protest as the group stomped upward, skipping stairs whenever they could.

Another hallway awaited them at the top, much shorter than the last. The door was easily visible.

"Open it!" Siesta cried. "Shit, open it!"

Grouse fumbled for the card. "I am!"

He ran it through the reader as fast as his arm would allow. Nothing happened. Swearing over and over, he realized the magnetic stripe was facing the wrong way.

Gurgling and groans drifted up from the stairs, coupled with the sounds of slapping meat.

The girls all began to freak out at the same moment, fumbling for loaded magazines. Realigning the card, Grouse ran it through again. The happy chime from the reader sounded like a blessing, and the door began to open inward.

"Oh come on!" Louise groaned loudly. "It's slower than the last one!"

"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" Grouse swore, watching as the door creaked at an abysmally slow rate. It opened just enough to squeeze through, and he didn't plan on waiting any longer. Siesta, slapping down the G3's charging handle, squeezed through next. Louise and Kirche followed right behind.

"How do we close this damn thing!?" Grouse yelled, hastily eyeing over the reader on the other side. The door clicked open, releasing the shrill buzzer.

"Shit! I don't freaking know!" Siesta replied. "Just swipe it again!"

Grouse did, and the door jolted as it began to groan closed.

The writing creature appeared in the hallway on the other side.

"It'll get through!" Kirche shouted, raising her rifle.

"Shoot it!" Grouse suggested, directing his Remington through the door. He left off a shell of buckshot, which thankfully seemed to stall the creature. The three girls fired as well, slinging out bursts. Their narrow window of fire soon grew narrower leaving Louise the last to point her rifle through the gap. She squeezed out the last few rounds in her magazine just before the door locked closed.

The buzzer sounded again, but at this point, nobody cared for it.

They all stood in silence, their weapons still pointed at the door. Only the sounds of their heavy breathing echoed in the room.

Just as Louise unlocked the empty magazine from her rifle, a heavy thud sounded against the door. She jumped back with a scream, along with Kirche. Her magazine clattered to the floor.

"What. The hell. Was that?" Siesta breathed, reloading. She turned to Grouse. "Did you see that thing?"

"Yeah," Grouse replied, siding shells into the shotgun's magazine tube. "I don't think I'll be sleeping for a while either."

"You... you've never seen anything like that before?" Kirche asked hesitantly, her hands shaking as she racked the AKM's charging handle on a new magazine.

"No way," Siesta shook her head, disbelief in her voice. "I have no sweet clue what that was."

"Well," Louise shakily began, her hands clenching her rifle. "It's in there, and we're out here."

"Don't say that," Siesta warned. "If it really wants to come out here, it'll probably find a way."

"No," Louise replied, unhappy with Siesta's words. "Don't say that."

Grouse sighed, leaning his back against the wall. "I didn't find anything relating to Item 62. Did you guys have any luck?"

"We're not 'guys'," Louise grumbled.

Grouse eyed her flatly. "Whatever, did you find anything?"

Siesta grinned. "I did find it, actually."

Needless to say, the entire group felt insurmountable relief at this revelation. It seemed their trip into the underground hadn't been for naught. They had a short breather in the small room, and after another heavy thump on the other side of the door, they decided they should get moving. A wooden staircase was the only other way out of the room.

The next floor was equally as small as the last. It appeared to only be occupied by old cardboard boxes and wooden crates. The walls here were comprised of deteriorated drywall, instead of the dull grey concrete they had gotten used to. If anything, it made them feel that the surface had to be close.

And it was. At the top of the next flight of stairs, there was natural light.

Reaching the next floor, there was no longer a need for flashlights.

They moved into the next room, happy to finally be breathing fresh air. Through shattered windows, they could see what awaited them outside. The substation yard seemed rather devoid of life.

The yard itself was quite large in area. Three towering buildings surrounded one corner of the yard, while the rest was bordered with high concrete walls topped with spiraling razor wire. One fenced in area was full with massive transformers, and plenty of tall electrical pylons stood about the area in neat rows.

Interestingly, at the far end of the yard, a helicopter appeared to have crashed into one of the pylons, turning the steel lattice tower into a tangled mess. Debris and garbage littered the yard, and electrical anomalies sparked dangerously in every direction.

The group gathered at the windows, crouching so that only their heads were visible.

Kirche pointed to the helicopter, speaking quietly to Louise. "What is that?"

"That's a helicopter," Louise explained. "It's like... uh, a flying machine."

Scoffing, Kirche raised her brow. "That can fly? Like a windship?"

"Well, probably not anymore."

Grouse turned to the others. "What route are we going to take? Along the road and past the gas station?"

"That would be the best idea," Siesta agreed. "I don't want to get lost in the woods, but I'm worried about running into bandits."

"So we could run into them here?" Kirche asked, not sounding very fond of the idea.

"Well," Siesta replied. "Not so much 'run in', it'll be more like them shooting at us from two-hundred meters away."

To Kirche, that seemed even less appealing. If their enemies had been wielding simple muskets, then they'd have to be much closer to each other to fight practically. Kirche was a mage, a skilled one, which meant that during her time in Halkeginia she didn't have any personal experience with firearms, but she had known the basics and applications. Germania was a country that loved their guns, after all.

In the case of these bandits, they didn't need to get close at all. Somebody could simply observe them from hundreds of meters away through the scope on a high-powered rifle, and then punch a hole through any one of them at their leisure. Modern firearms were fearsome things indeed.

Siesta continued to observe the area. "I don't see anything, just some anomalies and a bunch of junk," she said. "If there's supposed to be a poltergeist around here, I can't see it."

Grouse nodded. "I figured the bandits wouldn't hold up around here, too many anomalies."

"Where are they then?" Louise asked.

"To the east, in some old workshops I'm pretty sure," Grouse answered. "The mercs are out that way too, in the waste procession station. Those guys we fought underground might have come from over there."

Louise winced. "They won't be pleased when they find out what we've done."

"It doesn't matter," Siesta pointed out. "They'll just blame it on bandits, that's who they probably thought we were in the first place."

"Yeah," Grouse concurred. "Those guys take shots at each other all the time, apparently. I hear them every morning."

Well," Siesta began, rising to a stand. "Let's get moving. I'll lead."

Grouse chuckled. "Oh, that's fine by me."

"Electrical anomalies are easy," Siesta said, flapping a hand dismissively. She pointed out one nearby, where static electricity was manifesting itself in plain view. "They're easy to see, especially at night," she glanced back towards the two mages. "I hope you two are listening to this!"

"Well of course we are," Kirche replied, while Louise merely remained silent.

"Good, because if you walk into one of those you will die."

The group silently followed behind Siesta in single file as they snaked around the yard. Occasionally, Siesta would toss a bolt when she wasn't sure. Most of the time it only hit the ground with a metallic ring, but every now and then an anomaly would be tripped, sparking and crackling angrily.

As they began to near the downed helicopter, Siesta held up her hand for the group to stop. Off to her right, she heard the nose of something scraping against the ground. Looking, she spied a peculiar sight. An empty plastic bucket shuffled along towards them, until it suddenly levitated straight up into the air.

The group stared, bewildered. The first thought to come to Louise and Kirche's minds was that a mage was nearby, making the bucket levitate.

Siesta's eyes widened. "Oh shit!" Was all she was able to spit out right before the bucket sped through the air. She brought up her arm to block just as the bucket slammed into her. The object didn't have enough mass to cause much in the way of injury, but it certainly caused her some grief.

"Shit! The poltergeist!" Grouse yelled.

"Oh fucking hell!" Siesta growled, watching as more nearby objects lifted into the air. "Follow me! Run!"

The group took off, hastily snaking around the anomalies Siesta spotted. Running through an anomaly field was tantamount to suicide, but the threat of the deadly poltergeist on their heels made staying still just as suicidal.

The running didn't last long. A rickety wooden crate sped in their direction, hitting Louise's legs and exploding apart into splinters. Crying out, Louise tripped and fell to the ground. The only thing to cushion the impact was her face.

Kirche skidded to a halt, hearing Louise's scream. "Louise!" She called, reaching the pinkette just as an empty paint can flew by. She grabbed the Tristainian's arm, helping her to her feet. "Come on!"

On her feet, Louise had the distinct coppery taste of blood in her mouth. Beyond Kirche, floating around the helicopter, she saw it.

The poltergeist itself was a manifestation of energy, appearing as a blue translucent ball in daylight. She pushed past Kirche, raising her weapon. She managed to let off a handful of rounds, before Siesta grabbed her roughly.

"No! Don't shoot at it!" Siesta dragged the pinkette into a run. "You'll just piss it off!"

It was true. Taking on a poltergeist with a firearm was just as effective as trying to punch a ghost to death. Running like hell for the second time in one day, a menagerie of objects flew all around them. Clumps of concrete, sections of steel, a rotted wooden pallet, and even a deflated car tire soared through the air.

A faded blue milk crate smacked Kirche in the small of her back. She grunted, and stumbled, but she kept up her pace.

They pushed through the substation's main gate, stumbling to a halt on the road outside. Thankfully, the objects ceased their deadly intent, letting out a cacophony of clatters as they all hit the ground simultaneously.

Siesta approached the huffing Louise. "Hey, hey," she said, reaching for Louise's face, which she initially resisted. "Let me see."

Realizing Siesta's intent, Louise opened her mouth slightly. "I'm not missing teeth, am I?"

"Nah, you just busted your lip."

Louise sighed. "I'm going to be rather worse for wear if this keeps up."

Siesta patted her arm, grinning. "Oh you'll be fine, Lou, don't worry. I'm still in one piece, aren't I?"

The pinkette stared, her gaze flat. "...Lou?"

* * *

 _A/N: This chapter was supposed to have another segment at the end, this one in Halkeginia. Halfway through writing it, I somehow felt that it didn't quite fit, leaving this chapter quite short. My apologies, but it'll be the opening to the next chapter._

 _In the said upcoming chapter, we'll visit the lovely lands of Halkeginia, specifically, the Kingdom of Tristain, where we'll see what one of the Valliére sisters has been up to._


	20. The Life of a Stalker IX

_The Life of a Stalker IX_

 _Zaton_

 _13:24_

Sauntering down the stairs, Kirche cast an inquisitive glance over the Skadovsk's bar. Only a handful of souls were loitering in the area. Beard was behind the bar as usual, Grouse sat on one side of the room conversing with Gonta and the other hunters, and Snag sat silently in a corner, his face dimly lit as he tapped away at his PDA.

Thankfully, Kirche was able to find at least one person she was looking for. Siesta sat at a table alone with her back to the wall, her attention fully devoted to something near her lap.

Kirche approached Siesta's table. "I can't find Louise anywhere. Have you seen her?"

Siesta looked up, but only for a brief moment. "You just missed her, actually."

"Really?" Kirche groaned. She placed her Kalashnikov to lean against the side of the table, and pulled out the chair across from the dark-haired stalker.

Siesta nodded towards Kirche's AKM. "That's not loaded, is it?"

"There's nothing in the chamber," Kirche replied, shuffling her chair. "So where's Louise gone?"

Siesta's attention was back to her lap again. "She went to take care of something," she replied without looking up.

Kirche furrowed her brow. "To take care of what, exactly?"

Siesta raised a hand and pointed downward towards her crotch. Kirche winced.

"Oh, well no wonder she's been so snappy all morning."

Siesta chuckled at the red-head's comment. "So how are you enjoying your grand adventure so far?" She asked idly.

Kirche stared. What was Siesta doing? The table blocked her view of the stalker's lap. "I think adventure would be much nicer if I wasn't constantly worried about being shot from hundreds of meters away."

"Yeah," Siesta snorted. "I know that feeling."

Kirche had enough. "What are you doing?"

Siesta brought her hands up, revealing a stainless steel revolver.

The Germanian narrowed her eyes. "Isn't that Louise's gun?"

"It is."

"Then why do you have it?"

"I told her I wanted to see it, so she gave it to me before she left," Siesta explained, shrugging. She held the Ruger up, grinning. "Hey, check this out." She jerked the revolver in her grasp before she began spinning it steadily on her index finger. Kirche watched as the muzzle of the weapon swept up and across the room dozens of times.

"That's not loaded, is it?" Kirche asked.

Siesta rolled her eyes, speaking as if she were a rebellious teenager being scolded. "No, Kirche, it's not loaded."

Kirche continued to watch as Siesta entertained herself with the gun. She found herself letting out a sigh that she couldn't bring herself to bite back. Her eyes felt strangely attracted to the table as she posed a question. "Siesta, how do you do it?"

"Well, it's not that hard really," Siesta replied, her eyes on the spinning gun. "Just don't let the cylinder hit your fingers. I could do this for hours."

"No, no," Kirche said, her shoulders drooping. "How do you do it?"

The spinning revolver slowed as Siesta turned her gaze to the girl across from her. "Uh, that's kind of broad. There are a lot of reasons for why I can do a lot of different things."

Kirche sighed again, pushing herself to be more specific. "How do you just... how can you stand being surrounded by all of this death? It's like it doesn't even bother you. When we got in that fight underground, it was just business as usual for you, like you'd done the same thing a hundred times already. How can you live in this horrible place without falling apart?"

The gun stopped spinning. Kirche was slightly taken aback at how fast Siesta's grin had turned down. The dark-haired stalker's face took on a more serious light.

"Oh," Siesta began, placing the gun down. "That's all you want to know?"

Kirche stared for a moment. "...Yes."

"Really? It's pretty simple," Siesta said, leaning forward. "All you've got to do Kirche, is accept the fact that you're already dead."

The Germanian's brow knitted together in confusion. "What?"

"I'm serious," Siesta insisted.

"How can I... what? But I'm not dead. You're not dead. Nobody in this room is dead."

Siesta scoffed inwardly. Yeah, not yet, she thought to herself. "I don't literally mean head-blown-off-dead," she explained, pointing towards Kirche's chest, at her heart. "I mean in there. You've got to accept that the person you once were is dead."

Kirche gave her head a slight shake. "But... no, no, how can I just..." She trailed off in a brief moment of thought. "So that's what you've done then, isn't it?"

"I didn't really do it," Siesta said. She leaned back in her chair, the wood creaking. "There was just one day where I sort of... broke, and then afterward, I wasn't the same person anymore."

"What happened?"

Siesta crossed her arms. "I'd rather not talk about it."

Kirche certainly thought that to be odd. Normally Siesta was up to recount any of the adventures she'd had in the Zone. This was the first time she had refused. The red-head couldn't blame her anyway. She was well aware that Siesta had already been through more hell then she could ever imagine.

Siesta sighed through her nose. "I don't think you should let go of who you are, though."

"But you just told me..."

"Yes," Siesta interrupted. "But I didn't say you should actually try to do it."

"You said it just happened anyway."

Siesta's face began to take on the makings of a glare. "Sure, but I didn't try to stop it. The Zone has a funny way of changing you into somebody that you're not. I've seen it happen to enough rookies over the years. Good and honest people come to the Zone when they're shit out of luck, and they turn into killers. It's happening to you now."

Kirche fidgeted in her chair. "And Louise too..."

"Yup," Siesta nodded.

"But you're not trying to stop it?"

"That would be rather 'noble' of me, wouldn't it?" Siesta snorted. "But why would I? Obviously I'm not a Noble, and I don't want to be. I'm just a stalker. Besides, doing that would just get the two of you shot."

Kirche sighed. She couldn't blame Siesta for her opinion on Nobles, especially the uptight Tristainians. "I suppose you're

right about that." She slumped in her seat. "So what were you like before all of this?" The Germanian asked glumly.

Siesta was silent, before suddenly letting out a short laugh that broke the mood entirely.

Kirche narrowed her eyes. "What?"

Siesta's laughter held an edge of disbelief as it trailed off. "I don't even remember anymore."

"You don't remember?" Kirche asked, confused. "How can you not remember?"

Siesta shrugged. She removed her mostly flattened pack of cigarettes from her vest, wrinkling her nose when she was reminded how few she had left. She let one hang in her mouth as she went for her lighter. "It's just," Siesta paused to light. "I have a bad habit of not remembering things that don't matter."

"Are you saying who you are doesn't matter?"

Siesta grinned, pointing with the burning tobacco. "I'm already dead, Kirche. Remember?"

Kirche leaned her head back. Siesta's words gave her a few things to mull over in the meantime.

Louise strolled into the bar, noticing that Kirche was now present at the table. She swiftly approached the table, taking up the seat adjacent to the two girls. After a moment of awkward silence, she looked to Siesta. The ex-maid was simply puffing away, looking towards Kirche. The Germanian herself was staring up at the ceiling.

"Did you have fun?" Louise asked Siesta, surprised to find Kirche jumping slightly. She wondered, did Kirche really not notice her sit down?

Siesta snorted as she exhaled a smoky breath. She leaned further back, placing her feet up on the table with two solid clunks. "Sure I did."

Rolling her eyes, Louise slid the revolver off the table and returned it to its holster on her back. She turned to Kirche. "So where have you been?"

"Oh, me?" Kirche began, still caught up in her thoughts. She flapped a hand idly. "I've been around. Up on deck mostly."

Louise narrowed her eyes at the Germanian, before turning to Siesta. She noticed her grin had turned a little cheeky. "What's going on here? Did you say something weird to her?"

"No, I don't believe I did," Siesta replied, smiling wider.

Louise watched Siesta's face for a moment. "What?"

Siesta feigned innocence. "What?"

"I said it first."

"You're peeved," Siesta pointed out.

"I'm not," Louise said, furrowing her brow in confusion.

"Is it because I've got my feet on the table again?"

"I don't care where you put your feet, as long as they aren't on me."

"You do care. Just look at your face."

"I can't look at my own face, Siesta."

Kirche turned to the pinkette, deciding to point out what she felt was obvious. "Mirrors, Louise."

"Oh, I'm sorry, but I seem to be out of mirrors," Louise replied, her voice laced in a sarcastic tone. She turned back to Siesta. "I don't care about your feet on the table."

"Bullshit," Siesta called out playfully. "You've got 'disgruntled Noble' written all over your face, come on."

"Maybe it's because you're being insufferable again," Louise shot back, growing agitated. The ease at which she grew annoyed was not due to her status in Halkeginian society. It was because of the function her body was insisting on performing. "Look at me. I'm not much of a Noble anymore, not really."

Siesta laughed. "Yeah right, you're so noble you could shit the Queen."

Louise could only sputter incoherently, while Kirche found herself bursting out into a loud fit of laughter.

"Oh my God!" Kirche breathed, resting her face in a hand while the other slapped the table a few times. "Literally nobody has ever said that before!"

Louise found it in herself to scoff. "No, I suppose they haven't."

"Oh come on! At least chuckle a little. Kirche thought it was funny!" Siesta wined, her face morphing into a pout. "I woke up in the middle of the night and I thought of that. I even wrote it down so I could say it to you later!"

Louise rolled her eyes at the ex-maid's antics, which had only served to add to Kirche's laughing. She knew Siesta was rarely serious when she said things like that. She was merely teasing. While the pinkette acted the part of being annoyed, she couldn't suppress the tiny smile that tugged at the edges of her mouth.

* * *

 _Royal Magic Research Institute, Tristain._

The Royal Magic Research Institute stood tall and proud, deep with the twisting cobblestone labyrinth that was the city of Tristania. The Research Institute was famous for employing the brightest minds of a generation of Nobles, whose diligent work advanced magical practices and applications leagues ahead with each passing decade.

Over one hundred researchers worked day in, day out, calling the Institute a temporary home. The scope of their research encompassed dozens of different subjects. The Nobles here were highly respected, coming from some of the most prestigious families in the nation, and from the rest of the continent.

One such respected Noble was currently hunched over her desk, breathing ragged sighs of frustration as her hand continued to cramp from hours with the ink and quill.

Éléonore de la Valliére was well known around the Institute. She was one of the best researchers, constantly engrossing herself in her work for days at a time. The seemingly permanent scowl etched onto her face was also a subject of conversation for many who worked around her.

Behind a pair of angular glasses, Éléonore's violet eyes narrowed distastefully.

The current cause of her ire was a snarling and screaming beast, locked securely in the Institute's lower levels. After countless rumors, reports, and even a few deceased specimens, they had finally managed to bring one of the creatures into captivity.

That would have been fine, brilliant even, if it weren't for the fact that the creature made absolutely no sense.

It was humanoid, in the sense that it had two arms, two legs, and a head. The fact that it fed on blood would have made the creature vampiric, but it just wasn't. It could also become completely invisible at will, which should have made it a magical beast, but again, it wasn't. From the carcasses that had been observed and dissected, there was no explanation to be found as to why it could just turn invisible. There was also no distinction between male and female. There were traces of sexual organs, but they were underdeveloped and useless. How could they even reproduce like that? If it were a creature created by the use of dark magic, or necromancy, then it would have made just a little sense, but there were no traces of magical energies to be found.

It wasn't only Éléonore. This creature had the entire research staff stumped. It wasn't the best thing to have to write up when the report was to be sent directly to the royal family.

She wasn't sure of the time in her windowless office, but Éléonore had a feeling that the hour was growing late. She decided to set down her quill for now. She had other business to attend to.

After the Tristain Academy of Magic had been shut down, many of the teaching staff there had come to the Institute for continued employment. One such staff member, Professor Jean Colbert, was among them. He had taken up his work space in a rather odd area of the Institute: the basement, dreadfully close to that snarling beast.

From what she had been told, Colbert had been leading the students in the Familiar Summoning Ceremony the day her sister had disappeared. As of now she hadn't gotten the chance to formally meet with the man. She'd been quite busy as of late. If he were still downstairs, which she suspected he would be, she was going to have that meeting now, in a much more casual setting.

The blonde stood from her chair, adjusting her skirt and blouse before swiftly leaving. After casting a quick spell to lock the door, her heeled shoes clicked as she strolled purposefully down the stone-floored hallways.

The windows to her right showed the skyline of Tristania, bathed in a natural orange glow. The hour had indeed grown late, which would explain the vacancy of the halls. She didn't come across any of her fellow researchers, only a sparse few maid-servants busily scurrying about as they tended to their duties. Éléonore paid them no mind, and they did the same to her.

The entire kingdom had been thrown into complete disarray. Refugees from outlying villages continuously poured through Tristania's gates, praying for shelter in what was one of the few safe places around. Castle de Gramont was also said to be safe, and the lands of la Valliére had also been considered a safe haven, until very recently.

Éléonore hadn't been present to witness it for herself, but the plague tormenting the lands of Tristain had found its way to her home. The anomalous formations that sprouted up at random were extremely dangerous. She hadn't done such research in the field, but she had read the reports on what happened to the human body when one was unlucky enough to come into contact with an anomaly. People were torn to shreds, crushed by invisible forces, thrown into the air without warning, and torched to cinders.

Nobody could explain what was happening. The church feared it was punishment from God, but for what reason?

Éléonore had been quite surprised to find that her family had relocated to here, in the capitol. Due to their close ties to the royal family, they had been allowed stay within the walls of the palace itself. She lived in the capitol for the majority of the year anyway, so it wasn't as if Éléonore had to make a big change when she chose to stay in the palace as well. She wanted to be close to her family during these hard times, especially to her younger sister, Cattleya. Her sister's health was poor at the best of times, and Louise's disappearance certainly hadn't helped. Louise and Cattleya were close, and had sometimes spent nearly every waking hour in each other's presence.

She could only wish that she had shared such a bond with her youngest sister. They had been distant, never got along, and had always argued over the littlest of things.

But Éléonore didn't care about any of that now. She'd give anything just to see Louise again.

Reaching the stairwell, Éléonore descended. After a few floors her surroundings grew less and less lavished. Soon enough, glowing lanterns and dark stone grew dominant around her. She didn't particularly enjoy going down this far. The sub-levels always grew dank.

She could hear the wails of the creature now, muffled and distant. It grated on her ears. She hated it. Éléonore was proud to admit that her mother was the only thing to instill any fear in her. If anybody were to say they didn't feel even a little nervous when the Duchess of la Valliére was in the same room as them, they were lying. However, this creature had certainly changed that for the eldest Valliére sister. The majority of the time, it stood in its cage completely invisible, unless the room happened to be dark. Then the eyes could be seen shining angrily.

If anyone got within so much as ten feet of the cage, the creature would launch itself into the visible spectrum, pulling violently at its bindings and screaming madly.

Éléonore was just glad she didn't have to enter that room right now.

Pausing in the dimly lit hallway, Éléonore softly knocked at a wooden door. She heard some shuffling about inside, and the distinct sound of something hitting the floor. She raised her brow. Colbert was known to be rather absentminded, and at times, a little eccentric. After a slim moment, she heard a male voice call out from inside.

"Oh – uh, please! Come in, come in!"

Pushing the door open, Éléonore was greeted with the sight of a balding man retrieving a flask and some scattered parchment and papers from the floor.

"Ah, Miss Valliére," he greeted jovially, reorganizing the misplaced items on a nearby table. "What brings you down here this evening?"

Éléonore mostly knew of Jean Colbert for his service in Tristain's Mage Knights. For a time he had served under her mother's command before she had moved on to the Manticore Corps. His balding head was proof enough that his time in the Mage Knights had been long ago. He was a tall man, wearing a long set of dark robes, with a pair of round spectacles sitting on his nose.

"I've just come to speak with you," Éléonore explained.

Colbert hmm'd, his eyes cast downwards at a large sheet of parchment on the table. "I suspect it is nothing work related?"

"No," Éléonore said, allowing the tiniest of tired sighs to escape. "Not particularly."

"I see," Colbert nodded. He appeared to be sketching something with a small lump of sharpened charcoal. Upon further examination, she spied a gun lying flat on the table. She quirked an eyebrow, wondering what interest Colbert would have in a firearm. "I was expecting this meeting, truthfully," he continued. "Your mother was here only a few days ago, in fact."

Éléonore was a little surprised at this new information. "She was?"

"Yes," Colbert said. "About your youngest sister, Louise. I presume that is why you're here as well."

"It is, yes," Éléonore admitted curtly. While she may have impatiently desired for Colbert to simply spit out the details and be done with it, she wasn't about to be snappy with him. "I hope I am not interrupting anything."

Colbert paused, looking up from his work. He flapped a hand dismissively. "No, no. Of course not. I'll be happy to tell you what I know, thought admittedly, it isn't much."

"Is that so?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Colbert said, nodding. "You're quite aware of your sister's rather... unique brand of magic, correct?"

Éléonore sighed. "I've had quite a few first-hand experiences, yes."

"Then you'll understand when I say I didn't hold much hope for her during the ceremony."

"Well, of course you wouldn't."

"But that being said," Colbert continued. "I did pray for her success. You must have known more than anybody that she tried her absolute best in everything she did."

Éléonore nodded in firm agreement. "She did."

"That is why I do not understand," Colbert said, pausing in his work. He set the charcoal down. "Louise de la Valliére did everything perfectly. Her theoretical studies were some of the best I've ever seen during my teaching career. She should have been the star of the Academy. It's simply baffling how everything she did went so horribly wrong. During the Summoning Ceremony her incantation was perfect. The execution was flawless."

Éléonore stared, furrowing her brow. "So what happened?"

"Exactly what you'd expect," Colbert continued. "Her spell resulted in an explosion. The force alone was enough to send nearly everybody to the ground, including myself. When the smoke cleared, she was simply gone."

The blonde caressed her temples. "That's it? She was just gone?"

"Completely," Colbert confirmed with a nod. "However... it does seem that all of these strange events coincide with your sister's disappearance."

Éléonore eyed the man. "Are you saying she may be responsible?"

"No," Colbert answered quickly. "Of course not, how could she?"

Éléonore sighed, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Colbert was right, that wasn't much at all, but if that was what happened, then that was what happened.

"I'm sorry," Colbert said, noticing Éléonore's displeasure. He returned to his sketching. "I wish there was more I could tell you, honestly, but that's it."

"No, no," Éléonore said, flapping her hand tiredly. "That's fine. I understand."

Stepping forward with arms crossed, Éléonore's eyes narrowed at the weapon on the table. She was a naturally curious woman. It was part of her job after all.

"If I may ask," Éléonore began. "Why is it that you have a gun in here?"

"Oh, this?" Colbert asked, gesturing towards the firearm with his charcoal. "I've been studying this for weeks, actually."

Éléonore raised her brow, a little confused. "You're studying a firearm? What's to study?"

"Ah, well, you see," Excitement creeped onto his face as he began his explanation. "This isn't just a regular firearm, it's something quite interesting."

Interesting? Éléonore wondered what exactly could be interesting about a gun. They were simple and hateful things, meant only to cause death and suffering. When she eyed the weapon more closely, she realized that it was rather different than a normal flintlock musket.

The rifle, similar to a Mosin-Nagant, was a Finnish M39 service rifle.

"It doesn't load through the muzzle," Colbert said, hefting the rifle up into his arms. He rotated the bolt handle upward and then pulled rearward to expose the rifle's innards. "It loads here, in the breech."

Cocking her head slightly, Éléonore pursed her lips. "Well, that is rather different I suppose."

"Indeed," Colbert agreed, setting the rifle down. He moved over to a desk set against the wall, pulling open a drawer. He returned to Éléonore, with a handful of small items. "It does not fire lead balls, either. Instead, it fires these."

Taking an object, the eldest Valliére sister eyed over the full metal jacket 7.62x54mm round closely. She noted that it did look rather mean when compared with a simple ball of lead.

"The entire thing isn't fired from the gun, however," Colbert continued, taking the cartridge back into his own hands. "The case is comprised of steel, while the projectile itself is copper with a lead core. The means for ignition, along with the gunpowder, is all contained within the steel casing."

Éléonore narrowed her eyes. That was really something different. "That's rather interesting, actually. Who's come up with something like that?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," Colbert admitted. "But in terms of weaponry, its absolute brilliance."

The rifle's bolt still open, Colbert held the weapon again. He began snapping cartridges into the M39's magazine.

"The weapon is able to hold five of these at a time," Colbert pointed out. He closed the bolt. "Right now, it's ready to fire. The projectile is sent down the barrel, but the empty casing still remains." He cycled the bolt, ejecting the live cartridge. It landed on the table with a solid clop, rolling a few inches. "Now it can fire again. It can be operated this way until all of the shots have been fired, where the user merely has to insert five more before the weapon can be used again."

Éléonore watched as Colbert cycled out the remaining cartridges. She wondered who could have possibly come up with something like this. To her, it seemed to be death-dealing brilliance at its finest.

"The barrel itself is not a smooth tube, like our muskets. There are spiraling grooves along the entire length of the barrel that cause the projectile to spin in flight," Colbert explained. "From what I've gathered during some of my own practical research, it offers an immense improvement to accuracy. While the bore itself is rather small – it seems to be only thirty caliber – I have no doubts to its deadliness."

"Practical research?" Éléonore asked. "You've used the weapon yourself?"

"Of course," Colbert replied, setting the rifle down. "In the field, a column of musketeers armed with these would be an extremely formidable force."

"Somebody had to have made it," Éléonore pointed out, feeling that it was obvious. "Is this the only one?"

"No," Colbert answered. "It is not the only one, in fact..." He moved to a cabinet across the room, pulling the doors open. Éléonore found herself gaping at the contents. While she didn't have any idea of the makes and models of the weapons inside, the cabinet itself was filled with Mosin rifles, Simonov carbines, Kalashnikov assault rifles, and a singular Lee-Enfield rifle. "The Mage Knights have been finding these, and they've been bringing them to me believing I would be interested. I haven't gotten the chance to study the rest," Colbert explained. He gestured to the Mosin rifles. "These are very similar to the weapon I showed you, while the others are far more complex in design."

"They've just been finding them?" Éléonore asked, stepping closer to the cabinet. "Where exactly have they been finding them?"

Colbert sighed. "In the hands of dead men, for the most part. Some others have been found in odd places, in the middle of roadways, hanging in the branches of trees... very odd places. They've been crafted with such precision that I do not believe we have the means to reproduce them ourselves."

Éléonore stared at the cabinet full of weaponry. "Perhaps you should bring this to somebody's attention. Somebody far more important than myself."

"I've been trying, honestly," Colbert replied. "But none of the Nobility is interested. They hold a certain disdain for weapons of this type, but I cannot particularly blame them for that. The only interest I've gained is from Agnes de Milan."

Éléonore made a face. "The Captain of the Princess' personal guard?"

Colbert nodded. "As I'm sure you're aware, Captain Milan is not a mage. Her entire squadron employ flintlocks as their primary weaponry."

Éléonore knew of Agnes de Milan, but had never actually met the woman in person. Princess Henrietta's personal guard being comprised entirely of musket-wielding commoner women had been a hot subject for debate at one time, and in many circles, it still was.

"So she hasn't come to see you?"

"Unfortunately, no," Colbert said. "Like the rest of us, she's been very busy during these times."

Feeling that the hour had grown even later, Éléonore decided it was time to take her leave. She did so, but not before Colbert insisted she take a set of sketches he had made of the M39 for her own observation. The sheets of parchment rolled up and tucked under her arm, she wasn't exactly sure what she would do with them.

She left the Research Institute, and as she walked the darkened streets of Tristania, she found she had a few things to think about. To her knowledge, the screaming beast in the institute's basement and Colbert's small armory of advanced firearms were all oddities that nobody had ever come across before. Why were they showing up now?

The disappearances of many Nobles had been thoroughly made note of. The youngest daughter of the Montmorency family was one Éléonore knew of, along with the disappearance of her own sister, which her family wasn't taking particularly well. She worried constantly for the well-being of her younger sister, and Cattleya seemed to be taking it harder than anybody else. Cattleya was barely able to leave her own room at the best of times, and now, in the palace, she didn't leave her room at all. Their father, the Duke of la Valliére, had become far more stressed. He was supposed to be retired, but in light of recent events, and his newfound proximity, he had been dragged straight back into military and court affairs. Éléonore had also noticed that her mother had become more distant and aloof. She'd sometimes disappear for days at a time, returning on her manticore familiar in travelling gear that hadn't seen use in years.

Éléonore easily found her way past the palace guards and got to navigating the maze of hallways and staircases. Eventually, in the lonely hallway where her family was staying, she paused at Cattleya's door. She considered checking in on her sister, before she realized that Cattleya would likely already be asleep. Continuing to the next door, Éléonore sighed as she stiffly entered her quarters.

Her room here was just as messy as her office at work, with papers and notes strewn about over her desk. It was a mess, yes, but to her it was an organized mess. She knew where everything was, and if somebody so much as tried to rearrange it, she'd have their head.

She dropped the sketches down on the desk. She realized now that she had skipped supper tonight. Her rumbling stomach served as an easy reminder. It was far too late to get a meal now, she knew. Thankful that the following day would be the Day of Void, she fully planned on having her first day off in months.

A little extra sleep wouldn't hurt either.

* * *

Swallowing another spoonful of stew, Alexander found himself sighing happily. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been graced with a meal of this caliber, but he suspected that it had been far too long. Nobody who spent their time in the Zone ever ate particularly well. The last halfway decent meal he could remember had been at Rostok, and it had

been so greasy that he felt fast food was probably healthier.

The stew itself had been prepared solely by Tiffania, who Alexander had quickly deduced was the Goddess of cooking. The girl was humble under the praise, like always, and reasoned that since she had been living alone for so long, she had plenty of time to practice. He still wondered about Tiffania, who he felt was a bit of an odd one. She never went anywhere without wearing her hooded cloak. He'd never even seen her without it. Even at the table, her hood was up.

Matilda and Tiffania sat with him, currently engaged in a lighthearted conversation. Alexander wasn't particularly paying attention. Apparently it was about when somebody's dragon familiar had licked the wig off of a magical professor's head at the Academy of Magic.

Alexander spooned himself more stew, looking past the two girls and across the room. His eyes narrowed as he paused with the spoon between the bowl and his mouth. He watched through one of the two windows on either side of the front door. Sometime outside had moved.

Was it another bloodsucker? He certainly hoped not. If those things had set up a lair nearby then they'd certainly be in trouble. The spoon went back into the bowl.

Hand resting on his holstered pistol, Alexander wordlessly rose from his chair and began making his way to the front of the room. It didn't take long for Tiffania and Matilda to notice.

"Alexander?" Tiffania asked softly. "What are you doing?"

"I thought I saw something," Alexander replied. He hoped he was just being paranoid.

As it turned out, when he pulled the door open, Alexander discovered that his paranoia was well founded.

Four men, looking beaten down and ragged, were staring back at him. Alexander was sure there were bandits in these lands, probably wielding a combination of swords, bows, and muskets. These men, however, were wearing faded trench coats and were wielding lethal and modern weapons. These men were plainly bandits of the Zone.

They all stood frozen. The bandits likely hadn't expected Alexander to pop out of the front door with a semi-automatic pistol strapped to his thigh.

The bandits quickly raised their weapons, while Alexander immediately slammed the door closed. While he wished he could just pretend he hadn't seen that, he knew that simply wasn't an option.

Surprising the girls, Alexander ran from the door and dove flat behind the couch. "Get down!" He yelled.

Tiffania was confused, as was Matilda. However, the latter woman easily realized that Alexander wasn't messing around. She moved quickly, pulling Tiffania to the floor beneath the table.

The barrage started only moments later. Bullets tore through the door and walls, and easily smashed out the glass windows. The copper jacketed projectiles zipped around the room dangerously, punching holes through anything in their path. The couch became a perforated mess, forcing Alexander lower, the bowls on the table were shattered and their contents were freed, and even the metal pot sitting atop the wood stove sprung a few leaks.

The fire stopped just as quickly as it began. Alexander immediately went for his Kalashnikov, but was dismayed to find it broken. It had been leaning upright against the side of the couch, where he had been sitting before supper, but now it was on the floor. A bullet seemed to have found its way through the handguard and gas tube.

Alexander swore loudly in Ukrainian. He turned to Matilda and Tiffania. "Matilda! Take her and run!"

Under the table, Matilda barely had time to think about what was happening. "What? We're not just going to leave you here!"

"Just go!" Alexander urged. "Get Tiffania far away from here. I'm going to slow these assholes down!"

While Matilda certainly didn't want to leave her new friend for dead, she knew she had to do everything she could to protect Tiffania. Grabbing the blonde by the arm, who was now a confused and babbling mess, Matilda swiftly dragged her down the hall towards the back door.

Alexander yanked his pistol from its holster, leveling the H&K USP straight at the door. It didn't take long for the door to be kicked inward. The bandit held his sawn off shotgun ready, but three .45 caliber slugs found their way into his chest cavity before he could do much of anything.

Outside, he could hear the bandits swearing in surprise and anger.

In the trees, Matilda led Tiffania by the hand in a wide arc. They circled until they found themselves to the side of the cabin, where they could both see what was going on.

Four men stood to the front of the building, although one was currently lying on the ground in a motionless heap while the others shouted to each other.

Matilda turned to Tiffania. "Stay here, okay? Everything's going to be fine," she reassured, cupping the other girl's face in her hands. "Just stay down and out of sight."

Tiffania, wide eyed and breathing like she'd just ran a marathon, could only nod shakily in response.

Brandishing her wand, Matilda purposefully strode away. She wasn't going to leave Alexander behind, and she definitely wasn't going to let these idiots destroy her home.

A bandit moved to fire through a window as Matilda neared the treeline. She could easily see his head fling backward with a sharp crack before he slumped to the ground.

The other bandits, however, could be seen holding glass bottles with rags stuffed in the necks. Matilda wondered why for a moment, as she wasn't aware of the application of such a thing. When the rags were lit, and the bottles were sent soaring through the air, she had the sneaking suspicion that it meant nothing good.

The first petrol bomb flew in through the door way, exploding in a shower of flames in the middle of the room. The second's intended target had been through the window, but instead, it smashed against the outside wall. Matilda gaped openly at the sight of the flames. That was her home!

Her teeth gnashing together, Matilda's face slowly contorted into an expression of deep anger. Her wand shot up, and she chanted quickly and purposefully. Between the bandits and her burning cabin, two steel golems rose up from the earth. The flames reflected off the empty suits of armor in an orange glow, and the swords they wielded shone wickedly.

The remaining two bandits, surprised at such an event, both began firing blindly at the two constructs. A Simonov and a Kalashnikov both spat lead, easily punching through the torsos of the golems. However, filling the chest cavity of a magically controlled golem with tiny holes did not do much to hamper their efficiency or mobility. If the men had known better, they would have considered the joints to be more choice targets.

The golems charged forward under Matilda's direction. The first loomed over one bandit just as his SKS had run dry. As the man froze in panic with a stripper clip in hand, the golem swung its blade for a clean decapitation. The second golem ran the final bandit through the stomach, who screamed out in agony as his AK-47 clattered to the ground. He fell, and the steel golem held the tip of its blade to the man's throat, remaining completely still. The bandit could only cough and gurgle blood as he stared up in horror.

Matilda dismissed her other golem as she approached. The fire had spread fast, turning the cabin into a roaring inferno. She could feel the heat of the flames on her back as she stood over the dying bandit.

"Why?" She growled dangerously, pointing her wand downwards. Tears of rage began to brim at her eyes. "Did you come here looking for Fouquet? You damn well found her you son of a bitch."

To her, the man was only babbling back to her in complete gibberish. She wanted to question again, until she sensed somebody walking up behind her. She turned, finding Alexander. Pistol in hand, the Ukrainian man was soot covered, and all around looked rather worse for wear.

Standing next to Matilda, his breathing heavy, he stared down at the single bandit as well.

Without a word, Alexander raised his pistol, and shot the man through the head.

Matilda jumped at the volume of the gunshot. Her wand drooped, and her golem was dismissed.

"He wouldn't have told you anything anyway. Nothing you'd understand, at least," Alexander said, holstering his sidearm.

Matilda stayed silent. She wouldn't have liked to admit it, but this wasn't the first time she had ended a life. Unlike other situations, right now she didn't feel a single drop of remorse for what she'd just done.

Suddenly, from behind, Matilda could hear the sounds of muffled sobs. She turned, finding Tiffania on her knees in front of the cabin, crying into her hands. Leaving Alexander behind, she swiftly jogged over and knelt before the weeping girl.

She pulled her into an embrace, and Tiffania returned it in full by locking her arms around the older woman.

Alexander stared at the pair for a moment, letting out a barely audible sigh through his nose. It seemed the pleasant times of relaxing in this nice cabin in the woods had come to a swift end. He crouched before the bandit, briefly eyeing his leaking cranium. How or why these men had come here was beyond him. The poor bastards had probably stepped through the same anomaly he had.

Either way, he didn't feel very bad for them. Maybe if they had come pleading for help or shelter he would have, but they seemed more inclined to take the route of shooting up the place and taking it for themselves. Typical bandits.

He lifted the fallen AK-47 from the ground, unlocked the magazine and pulled the charging handle back to inspect the innards. It looked serviceable enough. A nice cleaning would do the weapon some good. Most of his own gear lost in the fire, he'd just repurpose the bandit's equipment as his own.

Creeping into his stomach, he somehow got the distinct impression that Matilda was going to be quite cross, and she would no doubt be looking to him for answers.

* * *

 _A/N: Sup guys? Chapter 9 of The Life of a Stalker comes to a close. Siesta's given Kirche some advice, Éléonore has made some curious discoveries, and Matilda, Tiffania, and Alexander have had a very bad day, which we'll see the aftermath of in the beginning of the next chapter._

 _It's been taking me longer to get these chapters out, I realize. I've been working on what's going to be coming after Stalker Zero is finished. That being said, there's still quite a long road ahead before Stalker Zero is fully wrapped up. As of now The Life of a Stalker is going to be the longest arc, with two more coming afterwards._

 _Also, it seems we've hit the 200 review mark. I'll feed myself a cookie for this accomplishment._


	21. The Life of a Stalker X

_The Life of a Stalker X_

 _Albion_

 _18:21_

"Let's stop for a moment."

Alexander eyed Matilda over his shoulder and nodded. They'd been making their way through the woods in a tense silence for nearly an hour now, and the forest showed no signs of thinning out. Feeling a little dragged out after almost being shot and then burned alive, Alexander offered no objections to a quick break.

Kalashnikov dangling by its forend he leaned his back onto a nearby tree, causing the slung up Simonov carbine to poke him uncomfortably. The bandit's unprovoked assault claimed nearly everything he had to his name, other than the pistol on his thigh and what he'd been wearing at the time.

The air was thick and humid in the woods and his jacket was far too stuffy for his liking, but it was his only option right now. He wasn't particularly keen on the idea of walking around shirtless. The pockets of his jacket had gone from holding sparse amounts of lint to being stuffed full with Kalashnikov magazines and loaded stripper clips. It was a familiar feeling to be weighed down in such a fashion and he suspected it was only making the stuffiness of his jacket that much worse.

And then suddenly, seemingly without reason, Matilda had grabbed him by his collar and her face was now mere inches from his. It shouldn't have been that unpleasant, Matilda was quite the looker after all, but the livid expression contorting her features threw that right out the window.

"So explain something to me," she snarled. Alexander's eyes crossed over, taking in the wand directed at his nose. He craned his head backwards in a futile move. While not as imposing, he figured that a wand could be just as dangerous as a loaded gun, especially when in the hands of somebody who seemed to be radiating such a level of anger. "Who the hell were those people?"

Alexander had absolutely no idea, so he decided to just mirror his thoughts into speech. "How should I know?"

"Don't give me that!" Matilda barked venomously. Alexander winced. Perhaps he could have worded that better. "Maybe I was right not to trust you. I'm not blind. Those men had the same weapons as you. Are you saying that they somehow stumbled across my cabin in the middle of the woods, and then attacked us for no reason? Were they following you? If they were, I swear to the Founder I'm going to-"

"Matilda!" Tiffania cried, watching the exchange from the side. She decided that she couldn't let it go on any longer. She moved closer and grasped the green-haired woman's wand arm with both hands, desperately trying to force it down but to no avail. "Stop it! It wasn't his fault!"

"Don't defend him!" Matilda snapped, making Tiffania flinch and step back as though she had been slapped. Matilda quickly deflated, taking in the reaction she'd caused. In recent memory, she couldn't ever recall raising her voice to Tiffania. "He... what if he's responsible for destroying our home? That was our home, Tiffania!"

"Listen," Alexander began, intent on arguing his own point before Matilda turned his head inside out. He wasn't sure if she could actually do something like that, but after seeing what Matilda could do with her magic he was sure she could make some particularly unpleasant things happen to him. He quickly found himself on the receiving end of another glare. "Those guys weren't following me. How could they? Some green portal or something dumped me into the middle of the woods, so how could anybody follow me after that?"

Green portal? Matilda wondered what he was yammering about. Tiffania did mention some green flashes of light when Alexander first appeared, but the man himself had never mentioned a portal. What else was he leaving out? "How did you know so quickly they were going to attack then, huh?"

"They pointed their guns at me!"

"Stop!" Tiffania cried again, in a much more forceful tone than before. Eyes screwed closed and the crack in her voice did little to spell intimidating. Alexander hadn't known her long, but the majority of the time she appeared timid, soft-spoken, and gave off the aura of a genuinely kind-hearted person.

And so, it was rather jarring to see this sort of thing come out of the hooded blonde.

"Tiffania, listen-" Matilda began.

"No!" Tiffania cut her off loudly. "Stop it!"

"But-" Alexander tried.

"Stop!"

Matilda sighed deeply, relenting. She let go of Alexander, taking a step back with arms hanging at her sides, though her wand was still in a tight grip. Time to get some answers out of this man. "Where are you from?" She asked, her glare lessening into a serious stare.

Alexander let out a sigh of his own. How the hell was he going to explain this? "Well, from the same place the monsters are coming from."

"And where is that?"

"It's, uh... kind of far away."

That answer did not satisfy Matilda in any sense of the word. "Where is it?" She pressed in a hiss.

Alexander supposed that since there was no real easy way to explain, he might as well just come out and say it. "... It's in a different world."

Matilda stared, and then stared some more. "Oh," she calmly remarked. Alexander knew it would come any second now, and as if on cue, the anger quickly resurfaced on Matilda's face, tenfold. "So you only decided to bring this up now!?" She yelled. "Are you kidding me!?"

"I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you don't believe me," Alexander said, feeling like the thin ice he was treading on had just gotten that much thinner.

"Of course I don't! How can I believe something ridiculous like that? If you're going to lie at least come up with something better than that!"

"I'm not lying!" Alexander insisted. To him, this was far too similar to having an argument with his ex-girlfriend. In those situations, he always seemed to say the wrong things at the wrong times in the wrong tones of voice. He hoped for a moment that this track record wouldn't continue on.

Matilda opened her mouth to respond, but halted at the last second. Instead, she opted to massage her forehead while she took a few steps away.

She thought to herself, as ridiculous as it sounded, what if it was true? With all of the strangeness that had been happening lately was it really out of the realm of possibilities? Alexander was no doubt a foreign man and his strange accent only proved to set that fact into stone. It made the mention of a green portal make far more sense. As for the weapon he was carrying? Matilda knew just enough about firearms to know that she didn't want to be stuck at the bad end of one, which was an unfortunate position she had found herself in on a few occasions.

So Alexander's gun completely confounded her. How could something spit out so many bullets in such a short time? Was it a product of some sort of magical enchanting?

What if there was a place, detached from Halkeginia, where deadly monsters roamed the lands and needlessly bloodthirsty men wielding ridiculous weapons were waiting around every corner? All of these unnatural things were certainly springing up out of nowhere. If it was the truth, then this was huge.

"Look, I don't know what's going on around here, just like you," Alexander spoke up in wake of the silence. "If you want me to just go, then I understand."

Matilda turned on her heel, intent on a quick response, but evidently Tiffania beat her to the punch.

"No!" Tiffania immediately squeaked out, gaining two looks. She averted her eyes to the ground. "No... you don't have to do that."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Matilda cut in, pushing up her glasses. She appeared much calmer than before and even offered up an apologetic look, but she still didn't look particularly happy. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so angry, but..." She stopped, puzzled to see Alexander slumping against the tree and sighing with relief. "...What?"

Though he had tamely done so before, Alexander resisted the urge to swear in front of Tiffania. For some reason it felt wrong. "I honestly thought you were going to kill me or turn me inside out something with your crazy magic."

Matilda clicked her tongue, crossing her arms. She was about to question if that was how Alexander really thought of her, but then she remembered that she had slain two men with her golems not that long ago. Alexander had obviously seen that, and it was likely Tiffania had as well. She decided, for the time being, that it would be best not to bring that up. That could wait for a better setting. "Supposing that what you said was true," she said, watching as Alexander slid further down to a sit. "What proof do you have?"

"You mean other than the monsters and the guns? And the bandits that showed up completely out of nowhere and burned your house down?"

Matilda's eyebrow twitched. "Yes," she nodded stiffly. "Other than those things."

Alexander thought for a moment before remembering something glaringly obvious. "Actually, I did hear about this place a while before I even got here."

Matilda eyed him evenly. "How?"

"Well," Alexander began, his tone undoubtedly unsure. "The place where all the monsters are coming from is called the Zone. It's kind of... I don't know, like a lawless wasteland or something. Does that make any sense to you?"

"Sure," Matilda responded. While she'd never visited the areas herself, she knew that the lands to the east of the Germanian border were considered by most to be a lawless haven for barbarians. She supposed that 'lawless wasteland' fit the bill nicely enough.

"Alright, well, I was there. I ended up meeting these three girls who were pretty strange." He then remembered a specific detail that was worth noting. "One thing I should mention is that, uh... magic doesn't exist where I come from."

"W-what?" Matilda sputtered. She narrowed her eyes dangerously. "That's preposterous! That doesn't even make sense!"

"I could say the same about this place, honestly," Alexander huffed in return. "Preposterous and doesn't make sense." He continued before Matilda could cut in again. "Anyway, these girls had this strangeness about them, like they really didn't belong. There were only two of them at first, but another one showed up completely out of nowhere dressed in some ridiculous outfit."

"If anybody's dressed ridiculously, it's you," Matilda pointed out.

Rather than respond, Alexander ignored that interruption. "They hung around this region called Zaton for a while, and I didn't think much of them. Only one of them could speak the language, barely, so I didn't chat with them much. They invited myself and another man to some sort of private meeting one day, and this red-headed girl takes out a wand and starts waving it around and chanting. I had no idea what was going on at the time, but they all just suddenly started speaking my language perfectly."

Matilda thought for a moment. "A language or translation spell most likely. Go on."

"So they started going on about how there were from another world called Halkeginia, and that two of them were mages," Alexander continued. "One of them started making fire come out of nowhere, and started levitating stuff around. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. Well, at least until I saw you making suits of armor come out of the ground."

"What were their names?"

"Siesta, Louise, and Kirche."

One of the three names immediately struck some remembrance in Matilda. "Louise? Louise who? What was her last name?"

"I don't know. We don't usually give out last names or even real names in the Zone. She never told me, and I didn't ask."

"Well, what did she look like then?"

Alexander scrunched his nose. It wasn't like Louise's appearance was hard to forget. "She was kind of short and a little scrawny, with pink hair and eyes."

Matilda's eyes widened slightly. "By the Founder," she breathed in disbelief.

"What?" Alexander asked. "Do you know her?"

"Not personally, but I definitely know of her," Matilda explained. "I told you I was a secretary at Tristain's Academy, right?"

"Yeah," Alexander replied. "She and Kirche said they were students there."

"Louise is Louise de la Valliére. She's the daughter of a duke and duchess in Tristain and their family is tied close to the Crown. They're very important people. Everybody at the Academy knew about Louise. She was a terrible mage, couldn't cast anything right. All she could do was make explosions. When she attempted the Familiar Summoning Ceremony she disappeared into thin air. Everybody assumed she was dead."

"Well she wasn't the last time I saw her."

Matilda nodded idly, playing at her chin. "Kirche... tall red-head? Dark skin?"

Alexander raised his brow and then nodded.

"She went missing too, along with some others. So they're alive, you say? In some place called the Zone?"

Alexander nodded again. "Like I said, last time I saw them they were."

"So really you're saying they could be dead by now?"

"I'd rather if they weren't, but people die every day in the Zone," Alexander said. "They're with Siesta and she's pretty capable, but being capable won't save you from a bullet."

Tiffania shook her head lightly. During the course of the conversation, she had moved to lean against a tree with her head downcast. The sternness she had shown earlier had vanished, replaced by an aura of depression. "That's just horrible," she remarked quietly.

Rather than tell her that was the understatement of the century, Alexander stayed silent.

Matilda was silent in thought for a few moments. "You're really from another world?"

"Yes," Alexander replied.

"There's honestly another world? With no magic? Really?"

"Yes," Alexander insisted. "Seriously, I know it's pretty unbelievable, but it exists."

Matilda had her mouth open to question further, but she decided that she could ask Alexander more on his world later. There were more pressing matters to take care of right now. Alexander eyed her for a moment before using the Kalashnikov to ease the process of standing.

"What are we going to do now, Matilda?" Tiffania asked softly. She looked rather pitiful, Alexander noted. Like a child who had lost their mother in a busy shopping center. She was just an innocent girl who probably had no idea of the things people could do to each other. Alexander felt a little responsible for bringing this on them, though it was entirely likely that if he hadn't been there the bandits would have just kicked their door in and ventilated the both of them before they could do anything.

That, or worse.

"I don't know, honestly," Matilda admitted painfully. "We're homeless now, and we've got nothing but the clothes on our backs." She turned to Alexander. "...And some very strange guns."

"You don't have any money?" Alexander asked.

Matilda shook her head, but then stopped as if she had changed her mind. She stuck her hands deep into her robe's pockets. Her face lit up in surprise, pulling out a handful of coins. She counted them over and her expression quickly turned down. "Maybe there's enough for a night's stay at an inn, if we're lucky."

"That's pretty temporary," Alexander pointed out.

"I've noticed, thank you," Matilda shot back hotly. "We might be able to find work. I could... no, I-I don't know. This is all too sudden. I need time to think."

Alexander sighed. He felt well suited enough to survive by himself. He'd done plenty of that in the Zone, but having these two girls with him definitely threw a wrench into that. "How far is the nearest town?" He asked.

"From here? I'm not sure."

"It's..." Tiffania began, pausing to wipe at her eyes. Alexander looked, wondering if she had started silently crying while he and Matilda were talking. He couldn't blame her if she was. Matilda looked like she wanted to leap forward and smother the girl in a tight embrace. "A-about two hours from here, I think."

Tiffania was usually the one go into town, so Alexander reasoned she was likely used to the route. With the combined hours of walking he felt that it was quite an undertaking for the young girl considering she made the trip every couple of days.

"We should get going then," Matilda said, moving towards Tiffania. "It's getting late. It'll be after sunset by the time we get there." She held a hand for the other girl to take. They started off, hands interlocked comfortingly. Alexander walked a few paces behind, cradling the Kalashnikov.

This was the first time he'd been more than a few hundred feet away from Matilda's cabin in a conscious state, so Alexander hadn't seen much of this world thus far. Matilda's abilities as a mage were certainly a sight to behold, and the dual moons that hung gracefully in the sky created a visage worthy of hours of awe.

So he wondered, just what else could this world of fantasy have in store?

* * *

 _Zaton_

 _19:42_

"It's just so disgusting," Louise groused.

Next to her, Kirche chuckled. "You think so? I rather like the rain."

Louise and Kirche currently found themselves a little displaced. Rather than being aboard the Skadovsk during such unfavorable weather, they were instead on the nearby Shevchenko. The Shevchenko wasn't far from the Skadovsk, only a few hundred meters south, but that was all the distance the bandits needed to begin staging small raids. The girls, along with a numerable amount of other stalkers, had temporarily relocated to the Skadovsk's sister camp to even out the numbers among ships.

While the Shevchenko was slightly smaller than the Skadovsk it was far more intact. Two truck-sized holes on either side of the hull served as the entrances to the camp, and other than the plague of rust, they were the only notable damages to speak of. The only reason the Shevchenko was deemed a less desirable camp was the lack of a bar.

Louise had initially waved that off. She felt that not having a bar wasn't such a big deal, but oddly enough she did find herself missing the atmosphere.

Or maybe it was because she seriously hated being out in the rain.

She also missed the bunk in Tremor's old office. Even though it was musty and covered with suspicious stains, it was much better than lying on a cold metal floor. She felt for Kirche and her sleeping arrangement, although the Germanian didn't do much complaining about it anymore. Siesta didn't complain either. When she was alone with Siesta during her first days in the Zone they didn't have such 'luxurious' accommodations. The Skadovsk had a few wide rooms solely dedicated as a sleeping areas, but being that Siesta was a girl she wasn't quite so keen on sleeping in a room packed full of men, and neither was Louise.

So during that time Siesta had just loaned Louise her sleeping bag while she sat herself in a corner in one of the lonely rooms in the upper levels of the Skadovsk and easily nodded off. Louise often wondered how Siesta could sleep in such positions. Maybe if she wouldn't topple over, Louise thought that Siesta could probably even sleep standing up.

Since the deck was constantly being patrolled, the Shevchenko stalkers had raised a network of polyethylene tarps in an attempt to keep the rain at bay. They covered the two sides of the deck, leaving the middle open to the elements. Each section was haphazardly supported with rotted wooden boards.

The idea was sound enough, but it didn't seem to be working as well as everybody had hoped. Most of the tarps were dotted with tears and punctures, allowing steady streams of water to leak through. The more structurally intact of the tarps tended to fill up with water and would eventually collapse under the strain. If they didn't do that, the water would generously slosh over with every gust of wind.

So even standing under a tarp with their hoods up, the girls still found themselves getting uncomfortably soaked.

"I think it's a little strange for a fire mage to say something like that," Louise pointed out, looking out over the marshes.

Kirche scoffed. "It's not like that really matters at this point."

"I suppose that's true."

Louise glanced over her shoulder as a pair of stalkers strolled past, Leary and Pilot if she remembered the names correctly.

"Man, I hope the marshes don't flood again," she heard Leary remark.

"Yeah," Pilot agreed. "Hey, remember back when the last time that happened? When Snag opened the Skadovsk's door?"

Leary laughed. "Yeah, there was like a freaking foot of water in the bar."

Kirche snorted as the pair moved on. "Well I certainly hope that doesn't happen to us."

Louise nodded in hearty agreement.

"I just like listening to the rain," the red-head continued. "I find it relaxing."

"Really?" Louise still stared off into the distance. She let out a long yawn, neglecting to politely cover her mouth. "My sister Cattleya used to say something like that, but I've never found it to be relaxing myself."

"So you hate everything about the rain then?"

"Yes. Especially how it makes me wet."

Kirche let out another snort, which turned into a quiet chuckle.

"What?" Louise asked, shooting the Germanian a narrow-eyed stare.

"Nothing, nothing," Kirche said, flapping her hand.

"No, what was it? Tell me."

"I don't know if you'd get it or not."

"Why wouldn't I?"

Hearing footsteps on the metal decking the two mages looked to find Siesta approaching. "What's up?" She greeted, waving lazily. Her helmet sat lopsided, sending an urge through Louise to correct it, and she appeared marginally less wet.

"Oh, you know, staring at nothing and getting soaked," Kirche pointed out dryly.

Siesta scoffed. "Sounds great," she remarked sarcastically.

"Why did you come out here?" Louise asked hotly. She cast a light glare to the approaching stalker, disgruntled that she was stuck out in the rain with Kirche while Siesta remained within the innards of the ship. "Were you not enjoying it inside where it's warm and dry?"

Siesta shrugged, standing behind the two girls. "I drew the short straw."

"Oh, like us then," Kirche said.

"Yup," Siesta eyed Louise, who had returned to looking out into the dampened marshes. A smirk drew across her face as she stared at the back of the pinkette's head. "Hey Lou, you look tense. Want a massage?"

Louise found her eyebrow involuntarily twitching. "I told you to never call me that again."

"Why not?" Siesta whined, mimicking a hurt tone. "Friends give each other nicknames all the time."

"That may be, but it isn't fair because I can't shorten your name into something stupid as well."

Siesta laughed, letting her rifle hang on its sling. She placed her hands on the shorter girl's shoulders.

Louise clicked her tongue, shrugging in an attempt to get the hands off. "What are you doing?"

"Massage."

"I don't want it," Louise grumbled.

Siesta promptly ignored her, working her hands against Louise's shoulder muscles. Kirche looked on curiously, wondering what the ex-maid was up to now. Louise herself would have liked to spin around and tell Siesta where to go and how to get there, but she found that the stalker's incessant prodding actually felt kind of nice. It was as if her shoulders had been in knots and were now being swiftly untied.

How did Siesta even know how to do this? Perhaps there wasn't much to it.

Siesta leaned in close to Louise's ear, speaking in her best seductive voice. "Hey, wanna ditch Kirche and make out behind the ship?"

Kirche burst into a fit of laughter, while Louise whirled around eyes wide and cheeks flushed.

"W-w-w-what are you saying!?" Louise shrieked. Siesta took a step back, joining Kirche in laughter. "Ugh! You're so creepy!"

Siesta and Kirche both leaned onto each other for support. "Her... her face!" Siesta managed between laughs. "Oh my God, did you just see her face?"

Kirche nodded, wiping at her eyes. "I-I did! I did!"

Her face creased in annoyance, Louise turned away from the pair. Things usually went this way when they were idle, and who picked on who would often rotate. Kirche and Louise would team up on Siesta, Louise and Siesta would team up on Kirche, and more often than not, Kirche and Siesta would team up on Louise with their playful jabs. It was an odd dynamic that Louise had found incredibly annoying at first, but she had grown to find some amusement in it, except when Siesta would sneak up from behind and make weird remarks in her ear. She just hated that. Kirche seemed to find some great hilarity in it, however.

Louise felt that there might be some deeper meaning behind the things that Siesta did. Without Siesta's constant injection of levity she suspected they probably would have gone completely insane by now.

That, or Siesta just liked to pick on people.

It was probably that.

A heavy gust of wind rolled through the marshes, taking up a section of tarps with it. Stalkers in the area swore loudly in annoyance, especially Leary, who had gotten completely soaked by the bucket loads of water that had spilled out. Pilot seemed to be having a good laugh at his plight.

Siesta turned, rolling her eyes as she watched Snag and Garmata attempt to wrangle the tarp before it found its way overboard and into the marshes. "How many times has that happened today?"

"That would be ten," Kirche answered glumly.

While Siesta and Kirche were paying most of their attention to the rouge tarp, Louise thought she noticed something moving in the marshes. She squinted, trying to get a better view. The sun would soon set, and combined with the heavily overcast sky it made the marshes fairly dark. Her stomach knotted up in paranoia, which she desperately tried to will away.

It was probably just some boars or something.

"What the point anyway? We're still getting soaked," Siesta grumbled. She stepped away. "I'll go give them a hand."

As she walked, the snap of a supersonic bullet split the air, followed immediately by the dull thud of a gunshot. Her head whipped to the side just in time to see Leary collapse to the deck.

Another shot followed, the sound of the passing bullet much louder than before. Siesta quickly realized that the bullet had likely just passed between Louise and Kirche and had sailed right by her head. Before she could react, several more projectiles flew overhead, all making the same sound pattern.

Shouted obscenities came from all around, along with the calls to get down. Siesta didn't need to be told twice. She was already diving to the deck.

The gunfire came to a quick stop, and the gentle sounds of rain slapping against the tarps continued unabated.

Siesta rolled over onto her back and clutched her rifle to her chest. She looked worriedly towards her two friends, fearing she might find them punched full of holes. The mages were now both huddled down to the deck behind the solid railing, Kirche wide-eyed and breathing heavy, while Louise was face down with her arms covering her head.

"You're alright?" Siesta called. Kirche nodded rapidly in response, while Louise rolled onto her back and travelled her hands over her own torso. "Louise! Are you hit?"

"No!" Louise called back.

"Shit!" Crab yelled out from across the deck. "Did anybody see where that came from?"

"From the south!" was Garmata's answer. It vaguely narrowed things down, but nearly everybody had known that anyway. "Pilot, how's Leary?"

Pilot crawled closer to the fallen stalker. Blood trailed from a chest wound, mixing with rainwater and flowing with the pitch of the ship. "He's gone!" He replied.

Kirche looked towards the Shevchenko's superstructure. She would have liked to crawl in that direction to relative safety, but a generous gap in the railing nearby prevented such a move. Louise had similar thoughts, and had no doubt that if she tried to make a run for it she might end up with an extra hole or two.

Her rifle cradled in front of her, Siesta crawled closer to the railing. She slowly moved up to a crouch.

"Siesta, what the bloody hell are you doing?" Kirche hissed, staying low. "You'll get your head blown off!"

Siesta only held up a hand to silence the Germanian. She tentatively peeked over the lip of the railing, and sharply inhaled a lungful of air at what she saw. Rows of reeds shifted and split apart as bodies undoubtedly rushed through.

Nearby, Snag seemed to have engaged in a similar affair. "Oh shit! They're coming!" He yelled.

Stalkers leapt up all around and rushed for the south side of the deck just as gunfire set the air ablaze in an enormous crescendo.

Siesta leveled the G3A3 towards the marshes, centering the front sight post in the rear drum. Bandits split up left and right, firing wild bursts as they ran in search of suitable cover. Siesta fired liberally, over and over, unsure if her bullets were the ones to drop the bandits in her sights. Bullets rained down from the Shevchenko, raking through reeds and blowing small craters in the muddy soil.

Most bandits seemed to be desperately scrambling towards the only solid cover around, a derelict tugboat that sat angled in an awkward stance.

The door at the base of the superstructure flew open, revealing Grouse with a menagerie of stalkers coming behind him. They spilled out onto the deck, joining in on the firefight and raising the level of gunfire to a new high.

Louise shakily rose to a crouch, barely able to hear anything over the discharging rifles around her. She was faintly sure she could hear Kirche call her name as she pressed the Kalashnikov's stock into her shoulder, but she quickly passed it off.

Peering through her optic, Louise settled the sight on a running bandit, only for him to fall before she could pull the trigger. She moved on to another man, only for the same thing to happen again. Shifting her aim, she found a bandit leaning out around the tugboat's bow. She fired a single round, watching as her opponent dropped sideways into the mud. He squirmed in agony, clutching at his midsection before he was stilled by another shot.

She stared in the same place in a moment of morbid curiosity, before moving her point of aim elsewhere. She joined the rest of the stalkers in their current style of engagement: shoot at anything that moved.

Kirche stood, let out the AKM's entire magazine in a series of fully-automatic bursts, and then ducked right back down again. As she unlocked the spent magazine, she noticed three indentations appear in the railing next to her with the accompanying sounds of copper-jacketed lead slamming into metal.

More shots came their way. Siesta lowered herself into cover, while Louise dropped herself onto her bottom. The railing was dented inward again before a few lucky projectiles managed to find their way through between Louise and Kirche. Both girls cried out, scrambling backwards.

One of the wooden stakes very close to Kirche's head was splintered in half. In absence of the needed support, the tarp over their heads came down, spilling collected water and draping Louise in a blue cocoon. She tore at it angrily, causing it to come completely free of its supports to entrap her further.

"God damn it!" Louise shrieked in a fit of boiling anger, extracting herself from the soaking mess. Being shot at and then having the stupid tarp come down on top of her was enough to send her over the edge. She poked back up over the railing, yelling out and firing rapidly.

Siesta replaced an empty magazine, while Kirche similarly fished one into her Kalashnikov's receiver. "This is insane!" She cried, racking the bolt carrier.

Insane? Siesta supposed that it was. To her, this was just Tuesday.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Louise growled, moving lower into cover. "They've all gone behind that stupid boat."

Kirche peeked up tentatively to observe, before ducking back down. "I suppose we've reached an impasse?" The comment had already left her mouth before she took notice of the few fellow stalkers lying motionless on deck. She was certain the bandits had taken more casualties, but it was obvious that this situation wasn't going well for anybody.

The remaining bandits seemed to make a collective and wise decision. They began to retreat, sprinting back through the marshes the way they had come. The stalkers immediately resumed fire.

"Yeah! That's right!" Snag yelled from nearby as he fired. "You can run, but you're only gonna get shot in your fucking backs!"

Louise kept her aim up as the gunfire slowed. A bandit bounded through the marshes, his movements barely tracked through her optic in the dim light.

She debated if she should fire or not. He was just running away, wasn't he?

Her finger twitched down on the trigger, discharging a single round. She was fairly certain that the needle-like 5.45mm round had found its target somewhere on the bandit's body. In an instant he had gone from sprinting to laying face first in the mud.

Louise could only stare out as she lowered her polymer-stocked instrument of death.

* * *

Despite the darkness, Louise still remained on the Shevchenko's deck. A tarp over her head, she sat on her rear with her knees pulled up to her chest, barely able to see over the railing. Thankfully, it had stopped raining, but the deck still remained wet under her bottom.

She didn't really care anymore.

Cries of agony drifted across the marshes. An unknown bandit injured during the firefight had somehow managed to remain alive, and had also managed to be left behind by his comrades. Stalkers had thrown around the idea of going out there and putting the man out of his misery, but nobody wanted to step foot off the boat.

There could be anything, or anyone, waiting out there right now.

"Hey, Louise."

Louise jolted slightly at the address, her head whipping quickly to see who had come to visit. It was Grouse. She slowly

turned back to the marshes. "He's been doing that for over an hour now," she pointed out solemnly.

"I know," Grouse replied. He gazed down at the girl. He had been watching her for a minute or so before making his presence known. All she had done during that time was direct an unfocused stare straight out into the darkness. A thousand-yard stare, he supposed. He'd seen that kind of look on more than enough stalkers. A brief silence hung between them before Louise spoke up again.

"Who died?" She mumbled.

"Leary, Crab, Aviator, Matvey, and Polar."

"Polar?" The name had left her mouth before she even realized she had spoken. She knew the marksman was aboard the Shevchenko as well, but she hadn't sought him out to strike up a conversation.

"Did you know him?" Grouse asked.

Louise was silent for a moment, before quietly responding. "Not really, no."

"You should head inside," Grouse advised. "You've been out here all day."

Louise wondered if Siesta had put him up to his. She probably had. Despite mentally agreeing with the man, she didn't move.

"Louise?"

At the prompt, Louise decided to work her body into motion. Using her rifle to assist, she slowly rose to her feet. "I suppose I will then," she said, rifle hanging loosely as she strode across the deck. She could feel Grouse staring at her as she left. She ignored it.

Walking past a few stalkers, she entered into the superstructure. Sauntering up a flight of stairs, she moved through the narrow corridors to the room she knew Kirche and Siesta to be in. Entering quietly through the doorway, she found both females to be present. The room was dully lit by a flickering gas lamp. Kirche was cocooned in a sleeping bag, facing away from the door, while Siesta sat against the wall at the other end of the room.

Her helmet off, Siesta simply sat on the floor with her head against the wall as she stared towards the ceiling. Her G3A3 was nearby, and judging from the cleaning supplies that had been rummaged from her pack Louise surmised that Siesta had likely given the weapon a good servicing.

"Hey," Siesta greeted.

Louise didn't acknowledge the greeting. She moved across the room and sat with her back against the wall adjacent to Siesta. With the room's tight quarters, she had no choice but to be only a small distance from the ex-maid. She set her rifle to lean against the wall next to her, and huddled her knees up close to her chest like she had done on deck.

Siesta furrowed her brow. "You alright?"

Staring straight ahead, Louise easily decided that no, she was not alright.

"Louise?"

"I don't feel like talking," Louise muttered weakly, refusing to look. In her peripheral vision, she noticed Siesta had gone back to staring at the ceiling.

Louise silently recounted the things she had gone through since her arrival in the Zone, every horrifying and traumatizing event. All of it swelled up in her. Just what was she doing with her life? She reached up, running her fingers over the scars on her face. Dressed in these clothes, strapped down with weapons and ammunition, always dirty, and the remnants of three gashes marring the right side of her face all combined to make her feel as if she didn't look like Louise de la Valliére anymore.

She didn't even feel like Louise de la Valliére anymore.

It had only been about a month of this, hadn't it? An entire month where monsters had tried to eat her, people had tried to kill her, and in turn, she had killed people. She just wanted it all to end. She couldn't just stand around with Kirche and Siesta throwing playful jabs at each other anymore. She needed some kind of release for everything building up within her.

She needed to cry.

Louise did not want to cry.

The last time she had done so was before she had even come to the Zone. She remembered the seemingly endless nights of crying herself to sleep at the Academy. The bullying, her failures, and her family's disappointment all felt incredibly stupid in light of the things happening around her now.

At least then, nobody was shooting at her.

Since her arrival in the Zone she hadn't had a full on session of burst-into-tears crying. She'd had a few sobs, but she always tried her best to hold them back. In a place like this, she knew she had to be strong. Strong people didn't cry, right?

Siesta was a strong person, wasn't she? Siesta never cried. Not to her knowledge, at least.

Closing her eyes, Louise suddenly found herself flashing back to the last person she had shot, the bandit running for his life through the marshes. She jolted at the unexpected images flashing through her mind and the non-existent sounds assaulting her ears. Her eyes snapped wide open.

Why did she do that? He was just running away. Why had she needlessly killed him? For her own satisfaction?

She wasn't a killer...

Was she?

Louise hadn't even noticed the tears streaking down her cheeks until a choked sob forced its way up her throat. She cursed mentally, biting down hard on her lip. Siesta would have definitely noticed that. Her thoughts were proven true when she felt a presence settle down beside her. She was drawn into a silent embrace.

She stiffened at the human contact. She bit down harder on her lip, trying to keep down the next sob that seemed to be pushing its way up her throat like an inflated balloon. She wanted to pry Siesta off, to tell her to leave her alone, to go away, but she just couldn't. Louise knew that she needed this.

Letting her tears escape freely, Louise suddenly threw her arms around Siesta's waist and buried her face in the ex- maid's chest like she had done with Cattleya many times before. She was thankful Siesta's vest did well the muffle the sounds of her crying.

She didn't remember when, but somehow, Louise managed to fall asleep.

* * *

 _A/N: Another one down. We'll be seeing some of Monty-chan and Tabitha soon._

 _Also, Louise is feeling sad. Can you really blame her? The end of this chapter felt pretty depressing, but it's not like life in the Zone is all sunshine and rainbows. The girls have also hung around Zaton for long enough, I think. Soon, we'll be seeing a slight chance in setting._

 _Perhaps that could open up some new missions and such._

 _Also, though I've mentioned it before, I've been devoting a lot of time to another upcoming work of mine. I initially had planned on waiting until Stalker Zero was over and done with before posting anything else, but I think it might come a little sooner than that. It's not that I don't enjoy writing Stalker Zero, but I am interested in a little change of pace._

 _Next chapter, we'll see some characters we haven't seen since Humble Beginnings. I wonder who._


	22. The Life of a Stalker XI

_The Life of a Stalker XI_

 _Albion_

 _19:35_

Though he had left the forest behind about forty minutes ago, the road before Alexander showed no signs of ending. The towering pines had thinned out, replaced by rolling open fields with towering grass that swayed with each gentle breeze. The sun had dipped just below the horizon and with it at his back the sky before him was beginning to darken to cool hue, only slightly delayed by the massive moons glowing brighter by the minute.

Alexander looked over his shoulder, being doubly sure that Matilda and Tiffania were indeed still there. He scoffed inwardly. He was sure one of them would start freaking out loudly enough if the other were to be ambushed by a bloodsucker, and to him Matilda seemed to be sharp enough. She would let him know if she noticed anything out of place. Though she probably wouldn't admit it, he knew Matilda had experience in combat, and he knew she had done plenty of things she wasn't proud of. It was easily enough seen in her eyes.

Tiffania probably had no idea. Her innocence had definitely taken a hit at the cabin, and he feared it would be taking many more similar hits in the future.

He returned his eyes forward, noticing a hulking black shape in the distance about a dozen meters from the right side of the road. In the waning light he figured it was just a boulder or something, so he quickly put it out of mind.

Then, he heard Tiffania speak softly from behind.

"Alexander?"

"Hmm?" Was his response. He gave her a cursory glance.

"You're walking with a limp."

Alexander moved his gaze towards his feet. He did have a bit of a limp, he supposed. Dull jolts of pain shot through his ankle with each step, but he had been putting it out of mind for the most part. "I am."

"Does your ankle still hurt?" Tiffania pressed, sounding genuinely concerned.

The former SBU agent raised an eyebrow, unseen to the girls behind him. He wondered why Tiffania would care about his well-being at the moment, especially considering her home was now a smouldering pile of ash. She should be far more concerned with her own health – in his opinion at least – but she was just too nice. Regardless, his ankle had all but completely healed over the week. "I think I re-twisted it when I was running earlier," he finally answered.

"Honestly?" Matilda spoke up. Alexander could almost feel her eyes rolling behind him. "You're not very coordinated, are you?"

He glanced over his shoulder, seeing the smirk dominating Matilda's features. He clicked his tongue in an annoyed yet playful manner, quickly turning back to the road. They had nearly come up on the large boulder, and upon further inspection he found that it wasn't actually a boulder at all. It had taken a more defined shape, sharp and angular. He almost passed it off due to familiarity, but he quickly realized that an old BMP-2 definitely did not belong here. Gaze locked on to the machine, Alexander held a hand out to signal the girls to halt. "Just hold up a second."

"What? Hey!" Matilda called after the man as he disappeared into the grass. "Where are you going?" Her eyes narrowed at the shape of the BMP. She followed after him. Tiffania stared for a moment as her long-time companion left the road. She glanced about nervously before swiftly diving into the grass as well.

Alexander came up on the tracked machine. It wasn't in the best of shape, but other than the rust from years of exposure there was no noticeable damage that might have disabled it. He looked up, his eyes tracing along the length of the 30mm automatic cannon. He certainly wouldn't mind having one of those in his arsenal, but it probably weighed more than he did. It was obvious the machine wouldn't move, and hadn't moved since it had been parked over two decades ago. There were no signs of it traversing the field. No tracks or flattened grass. It was almost as if it had just been dropped right here.

He had heard of things like this before. In the Cordon, he knew there was a set of boxcars sitting on the tracks near the train bridge, but with no locomotive to speak of. Although curiously, there was one in the Swamps not even remotely close to any tracks at all. There were also rumors of an old T-80 tank in a small clearing in the middle of the Red Forest in a place where it was impossible to drive out, and just as impossible to have been driven there.

But things like that had always been chalked up to the Zone just being the Zone.

So what was going on? Perhaps living creatures weren't exclusive to the connection between these worlds. Random objects seemed to be subject to random teleportation as well.

Matilda quickly caught up with Tiffania on her heels. "Alexander!" She stopped close by, bewilderment crossing her face as she pushed up her glasses. "What... what is this thing?"

"Have you ever seen anything like this?" He asked. He ran his hand along the rusted armor as he circled to the nose of the machine.

"Well, no, of course I haven't. Look at it!" Matilda replied, eyes wandering over the BMP's body as she gestured towards it.

"I... this wasn't along the road the other day," Tiffania pointed out. "We couldn't have lost our way, right?"

"No, we couldn't have. It's just been the one road up until here," Matilda said. She looked to Alexander, watching as he leaned the Kalashnikov against the side of the machine and then moved to clamber up the front. "Have you ever... wait - what are you doing?"

"I'm climbing it," Alexander stated the obvious, grunting with exertion as he hefted himself up. "Have I ever what?"

Matilda shook her head at what to her seemed to be some kind of ridiculous antics. "Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

"Plenty of times."

Matilda sighed. "So why are you climbing it?"

"To get a better view of what's ahead."

"If you really wanted that done I could just levitate up into the air," Matilda pointed out.

Alexander hadn't realized that. He felt a little dumb for forgetting Matilda's magical ability, but regardless he felt more comfortable doing it himself. He'd rather if he were the one to be suddenly picked off instead of her. He'd like to think such a thing unlikely in a place like this - and it was rather unlikely - but it was it was still far more likely than he preferred.

"So what is this thing, Alexander?" He heard Matilda ask as he gazed out across the fields.

"It's an infantry fighting vehicle. Comes from the same place I do."

"Uh... huh," Matilda drawled slowly. "And what exactly is it for?"

Alexander furrowed his brow as he stood atop the BMP's turret. Was 'infantry fighting vehicle' not self-explanatory enough for her? Nevertheless, trying to keep his tone neutral, he gave her an answer. "It's for fighting against infantry."

"Oh aren't you the sassy one," Matilda huffed. He hadn't kept his tone very neutral, it seemed. Alexander winced and smiled sheepishly. He moved on to other matters, namely, what he could see.

"Tiffania, is there supposed to be a road intersecting ahead?"

Tiffania's face lit up in realization. "Oh, yes! That means we're very close now."

A few more moments of silence as Alexander observed, until he suddenly dropped to a crouch. "Shit!" He swore. Tiffania's hands immediately went to cover her mouth at the sound of the spat expletive. Matilda glared harshly at the man scrambling down the machine.

"What is it?" The green-haired woman hissed.

"There's another group," Alexander revealed.

From the twitch in her face Alexander could tell her heart had skipped a beat. "Did they see you?"

Alexander nodded. "Yes. They waved."

Matilda gawked. "They waved?"

Alexander nodded a second time. Kalashnikov in hand, he flipped the selector down to semi-automatic and gave the charging handle a swift rack. At the sound of the weapon being primed for action he noticed Tiffania start slightly as an aura of apprehension rolled off of her in waves. He had also taken notice of the abject disbelief in Matilda's voice. "Waving doesn't mean anything crazy here, right?"

Matilda's instant change in expression made Alexander feel as if he had just asked an extremely stupid question. "What? Of course not! It's a greeting, obviously. Founder... what does it mean where you're from?"

"Well it's also a greeting."

"Then why would you even ask?" Matilda hissed, confused.

"I don't know anything about this crazy world," Alexander harrumphed indignantly, drawing out another roll of Matilda's eyes. He idly decided to start keeping track of how many times he made her do that. "For all I know you wave at somebody before murdering them here."

"M-murder!?" Tiffania squeaked.

Matilda silenced the uneasy girl with a firm hand on her shoulder. " Alexander, I've met some odd people, but you utterly take the cake."

Alexander snorted. "So what's the plan then? They've seen me, and they looked like they were coming this way."

Matilda thought quickly. "Did you see what they looked like? How many of them there were?"

"There were four," Alexander answered. "They looked kind of like you." Matilda scrunched her nose and gestured for Alexander to explain further. "They all had long cloaks. Their hoods were up."

Long hooded cloaks? "Could be mages then."

"Mages?" Alexander echoed. "What? Can only mages wear hooded cloaks or something?"

"Obviously anybody can put on a hooded cloak," Matilda replied. "But ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it's a mage."

"Right. So what do you think? Should we meet them?"

Should they go meet them? Matilda huffed. After the day's events she wanted to treat every human soul with extreme caution. "I suppose we'll continue on our way. If we meet them, then we meet them, but we'll do so carefully." Alexander watched as she brandished her wand for a slim moment before deftly tucking it into her sleeve.

Nodding, Alexander followed the woman as she trudged through the grass towards the road. Tiffania followed close behind on Alexander's heels. Reaching the road and continuing in the direction they had been heading, they found that the other group was now easily visible. Four people, each wearing long hooded cloaks like Alexander had said.

He hadn't fought against a mage as of yet, but Matilda had told Alexander earlier that firearms were a mage's worst enemy. She explained she could summon up rock walls thick enough to easily block a musket barrage, but it was always hard to defend against something you couldn't see coming.

It gave Alexander a little confidence, at least.

As the two groups neared, Alexander noticed a single figure move ahead of the other hooded figures with boisterous grace. He snorted to Matilda. "This is going to be interesting."

"Let me do the talking. The last thing we need is you upsetting four mages at once," Matilda remarked sourly.

"What? Come on. I don't upset people that easily... do I? He glanced towards Tiffania. "Do I?" He saw some of the nervousness face from Tiffania's face as her mouth curled up in a tiny smile. He turned away with a smile gracing his own features. Levity could work wonders sometimes.

"We won't answer that," Matilda said, smirking. "For your own sake."

The two groups stopped about a dozen meters away from each other. It seemed that was as close as they were going to get in regards to 'meeting'. Alexander couldn't help but notice the members of the group before him appearing a little wary at his presence, or more accurately, the presence of his weapon. Had they ran into people like him before? There were four of them, but Alexander couldn't ascertain much of their appearances because of their hoods. However, one of them did appear marginally overweight.

"Good evening fellow travelers," The group's leader greeted, bowing theatrically.

Matilda and Alexander both shared a glance that could only say 'who the heck is this guy?' while Tiffania clasped her cloak together tightly. Matilda knew well enough that this person's accent was Tristainian. "And good evening to you," Matilda replied.

She could see the lower half of the man's face turn up in a smile under the shadow of his hood. "You wouldn't happen to know the whereabouts of the nearest town, would you?"

"I do," Matilda answered brusquely. "We're heading there now."

"I see, brilliant. Perhaps we could travel there together?"

Matilda looked to Alexander, who registered her gaze with a shrug. "What?"

"What do you think?" Matilda asked, certainly loud enough for the other group to hear.

"The more the merrier I guess?"

Their attention went back to the other group as they heard a few chuckles. "Quite so," the group leader remarked. He stepped forward, pulling back his hood to reveal blonde hair. "I suppose I should introduce myself then. My name is Guiche de Gramont."

* * *

 _Rostok_

 _09:34_

Montmorency gazed up to the clouded sky, frowning deeply. After passing through Duty's checkpoint in the Garbage ashen colored clouds had swiftly rolled in and blotched out the morning sun. Luckily, the Rostok factory was now only a stone's throw away. "I really hope it doesn't rain."

Tabitha didn't respond, but Montmorency had the feeling she agreed. An emission wasn't out of the question, but Montmorency doubted it all the same. The clouds had moved in from the east, rather than the north.

The road began to incline downward as the pair weaved around a flat-nosed GAZ missing all of its wheels. The sheer rock walls bordering them on either side widened out into a shallow valley where the Rostok factory finally came into view. The path was littered with vehicle wrecks, but most of the derelict Soviet bloc cars had been pushed off to the side of the road to keep the way clear.

As they passed a white sedan rolled onto its roof, Montmorency felt a little taken aback at a question Tabitha suddenly posed.

"Have you killed anyone?"

Montmorency's pace slowed as her gaze became firmly attracted to her feet. Why would Tabitha suddenly ask that? They had been lucky thus far not to run into a roaming group of bandits together, but it wasn't as if Montmorency hadn't run into them herself.

"I... I don't know, really," Montmorency finally answered.

"Don't know?"

The Simonov's folded bayonet rattled as the blonde shifted the carbine to rest against her shoulder. "Well, I was only in the Zone about a week at the time. It was my first time going through the Garbage and I was with Drifter and Awl heading towards the railway hanger. We had just passed the vehicle yard and we were coming up on that spot where there's some stone blocks piled near the side of the road. You remember that place, right? It's got that little swamp just behind it."

Tabitha nodded. She did remember that area.

"Some bandits were hanging around there. They didn't even try to hold us up, they just started shooting, and then everybody else started shooting. I had no idea what to do, so I just panicked and started shooting too. I almost dropped my rifle and went for my wand," she huffed bitterly. "But what good would water magic do in the face of bullets anyway? Before I even left the bunker in the rookie village, Sidorovich told me to keep that kind of stuff to myself unless I'd like to attract even more unwanted attention." She quickly reverted to the subject of the bandits. "I only managed to get ten shots off at them. After that I hid behind a tree and..." She cleared her throat, as if she were ashamed. "...And cried."

Montmorency's blue-haired companion remained silent, contemplating. She considered telling Montmorency that she had actually ended human lives already, before even coming to the Zone. She wasn't proud of it, and it sometimes still haunted her, but the saying 'survival of the fittest' certainly came with a heap of truth.

Instead, Tabitha poised another question. "Awl?"

"Oh, Awl? He used to be around Drifter and Tolik a lot. Nobody's seen him for a while though..." Montmorency heaved a stiff sigh, knowing that Awl was likely long dead. "The Zone is so stupid. I hate it. I just want to go home and sleep in my own bed, and I want to bathe."

Nodding silently once again, Tabitha had to agree that a nice bath would be welcome. Dogs barking in the distance reached their ears.

Montmorency pressed ahead. "Let's hurry. I'd like to beat the dogs across the trench."

They weaved around a scrapped truck, the relative safety of the factory nearing. The famous trench was semi-circular in formation, bordering the complex's southern entrance. It was also lined with deadly spikes. Most were sharpened wooden stakes, while some others were comprised of jagged sections of scrap metal.

Bridging the trench were slabs of corrugated steel roofing that rattled dangerously as the girls stomped over them. Montmorency spared the interior of the trench a brief glance, finding it riddled with the fresh corpses of blind dogs and even a few boars. They must have been recent, because as far as Montmorency knew Duty sent out sentries to clear the trenches daily.

On the other side of the trench they quickly found themselves in the shade of tall concrete buildings. There was a checkpoint ahead on the road. A heaping sandbag barrier sat to one side, talking up half of the road, while on the opposite side a hastily constructed bunker of concrete blocks was nestled low into the ground. Nobody seemed to be occupying it, but through the gunner window Montmorency could see a table and chair arrangement and a few laid out bedrolls.

Behind the sandbags a sentry manned an ancient DShK machine gun mounted on a spindly tripod. He kept it only half- heartedly ready, the beefy barrel angled towards the sky away from the girls. The other sentries simply stared idly, their rifles held loosely. Montmorency had grown used to the stares, so she easily shrugged them off. However, one man did hold up a hand to stop them as they neared. She wasn't worried. Duty did this to everybody that wandered in, even if they had only been gone ten minutes.

He gave Montmorency a once over, his gaze lingering on her chest area far longer than she liked. "Back again, huh?"

Montmorency didn't recognize the Duty stalker specifically, especially when considering the balaclava covering his head, but she supposed her appearance was notable enough around these parts. "Yes."

"Your business here?"

"Just passing through," Montmorency answered, noticing that the Duty stalker's gaze had flicked over to the ever silent Tabitha. "Might have something to eat at the bar."

Tabitha looked to her right, Mosin hanging low at her waist. She eyed over the machine gun, and then the massive belt of linked cartridges primed to be fed into the chamber. She didn't know the caliber, but she dreaded to ever find herself on the wrong end of one.

"Oh, late breakfast?"

"I guess," Montmorency answered.

The sentry stared for a brief moment longer before brusquely letting them pass. The pair strolled down the length of the road in silence with rifles slung over their shoulders. Oddly, Duty's loudspeakers didn't seem to be playing today. It was welcome enough. Montmorency didn't mind the music, but she grew annoyed at the constant Duty propaganda.

They veered left, moving through a dark warehouse patrolled by a single Duty stalker on an overhead catwalk. It was obvious he was staring at their passing. His head-mounted flashlight swiveled to highlight their path.

"Are you hungry?" Montmorency asked as they left the warehouse, emerging into what most would consider Rostok's main square. The way to the 100 Rads was just off to the left, Arnie's Arena was straight ahead, and Duty's headquarters was only a small distance up the road. It was thoroughly guarded from any outsiders, and entrance was only allowed with expressed permission.

Tabitha nodded. "Yes."

The sign for the 100 Rads was hung over the entrance of a small garage, although it wasn't actually located inside. They moved through, exiting through the right past a small group of loitering stalkers. A short path lined with concrete slabs twisted around to the entrance of a bunker. They entered, descending through a narrow passageway. Tabitha took note of several posters plastered upon the walls, specifically one depicting a solider wielding a rifle similar to her own.

The faded state of the poster showed its age. She knew her rifle was an old design, but it made her wonder just how old.

Reaching a landing and turning a corner they came up on a pair of windows set into the wall. They might have been occupied by glass at some point, but now they were just gaping holes that gave them a view of the booth beyond. Inside, a man with a shotgun across his lap sat on a wooden chair. He paid the girls little mind, opting to pay more attention to the dirty magazine in one hand and cigarette in the other. The mask that was normally pulled down to obscure his face was rolled up, revealing gruff features. Tabitha watched, seeing that Montmorency paid him an equal amount of attention.

From here, they could hear the radio playing in the bar but the din of chatter seemed to be absent. They rounded another corner and the girls quickly found themselves in the actual bar. It was sparsely populated, although Montmorency did notice that the usual patrons still remained. Tabitha hadn't actually been in the 100 Rads before, so she gave the place a curious observation.

Vaulted ceilings and brick pillars dominated the architecture, with low hanging lights that drooped from steel beams which ran the length of the room. One corner of the room was barred by a chain link fence with a locked gate, in which there were barrels, crates, burlap sacks, and other assorted odds and ends. A single man stood in front of a doorway sending a steely gaze their way, and near that was the bar itself. Around the room tables and accompanying chairs were set up, few of them occupied.

Tabitha followed Montmorency to the bar, behind which stood an older man with arms crossed. She eyed him over silently. Tabitha hadn't seen this man before, but she could easily assume that this was the Barkeep she had heard about. The sleeves of his sweater were rolled up to his elbows, revealing tattoos running the length of his forearms. His jaw was square, covered in a few days' worth of stubble and over his sweater he wore a dark leather vest.

His gaze flicked from the approaching Montmorency over to Tabitha. "You're multiplying," he remarked with a deep chuckle.

"So I've been told."

"Where are all of you girls coming anyway? I might have to get Garik to clean up the place."

Garik snorted, leaning on the doorframe. "I don't care if the Queen of England comes down here. I ain't cleaning shit."

Barkeep laughed heartily while Montmorency expressed a slight wince. "We're just... down on our luck is all." She felt that was mostly true at least.

"Aren't we all?" Barkeep said. "What'll you have?"

"Just a couple of tourist's breakfasts."

"Late breakfast?"

Montmorency nodded. Barkeep informed the pair that their food would be ready in a few minutes, so they left the bar to take a seat at a table in a dark corner. The tourist's breakfast was commonly a concoction of greasy fried meat, bread, and when they were rarely available, eggs.

"After we eat," Montmorency began, folding her arms atop the table. "We'll head off towards the Army Warehouses. I'm not sure how long it'll take us to get there, I haven't been up that way before, but I suspect we'll be spending the night. I'd rather not risk getting caught in the open during an emission."

Tabitha nodded in agreement.

"I've heard that the path is simple, just follow the road. Freedom sounds fairly friendly, so we can ask some of the stalkers around there if they know anything about Siesta. Sound good?"

"Yes," Tabitha answered.

* * *

 _Zaton_

 _09:41_

"I'm getting pretty tired of this shit."

Kirche's gaze moved up from the table. "Are you?"

In the Skadovsk, Kirche and Siesta currently sat idle at a random table. After taking a generous swig, Siesta slammed her glass down on the table, causing a minor amount of liquid to slosh out.

"Yes," she muttered in distaste. "This place is turning into a damn warzone. I wanted to leave that crap behind when I went through the barrier." She waved a hand dismissively. "Duty and Freedom waving their dicks at each other every chance they got."

Kirche exhaled through her nose, leaning back in her chair. "I heard from some other stalkers that Beard's been talking to the mercenaries in the south and they're planning on running the bandits out of Zaton together."

Siesta nodded quickly, leaning forward. "I heard that too, and it's true." She pointed with a burning cigarette. "I asked Beard about it. Spartacus is going to be rounding up some stalkers for it."

"Something else for us to get roped into," Kirche muttered distantly.

"Yeah, no. Not if I can help it."

"No?" Kirche perked up.

"Hell no," Siesta continued. "I'm thinking we get out of Zaton in the next few days. I'm just getting this feeling that if we go down there and have a run at the bandits one of us is going to end up dead."

Kirche was silent in her thoughts for a few moments. "That seems a little... um..."

"A little what?"

"Dishonorable? Cowardly? Either works I suppose."

Siesta snorted loudly. "You don't really care about that, do you?"

"Well, no. I guess not."

"Honor is dead, Kirche," Siesta stated, sipping from her glass again. "Just like all of us. I'm sure you've realized that by now."

Kirche crossed her arms. "Certainly feels that way, doesn't it? If we're going to leave, where would we go?"

"We could go anywhere we want, really," Siesta pointed out. "I could lead us back out through the barrier, or we could go somewhere else. I was thinking of having Pilot lead us to Yanov station. I haven't been there before."

"You want to go sightseeing?"

Siesta laughed. "Not really, but a change of scenery would be nice, don't you think?"

"Maybe," Kirche began, nodding slightly in her agreement. "Would Louise be on board with this?"

"She is. We talked it over last night while you were asleep."

"Oh? Way to leave me out of the loop," Kirche harrumphed.

Siesta raised her brow. "I'm telling you now, aren't I? Besides, you were asleep." She gave the rest of the room a cursory glance. "Where is Louise anyway?"

Kirche held up her finger in preparation for her pending explanation as she drank from her own glass. She screwed up her face as the liquid ran over her tongue and exhaled sharply as she set the glass down. "She said she was going to her stash while you were upstairs."

"Her stash?" Siesta said slowly. She furrowed her brow in a moment of contemplation. "You mean the shotgun?"

Kirche nodded.

"Where is it?"

"In the ranger station," Kirche answered.

Siesta stared. "You didn't think to go along with her?"

"She wanted to go alone," Kirche pointed out. "She insisted on it, actually. I think she just wanted some time alone."

Siesta grunted deeply in distaste, leaning back in her chair.

"Are you worried?"

"Of course I'm worried," Siesta inhaled a heavy draw from her cigarette. "Aren't you?"

Kirche sighed. "Do you want to go after her then?"

Siesta thought quickly. She checked her watch as her breath came back out in a white cloud that gracefully curled upward. "We'll give her an hour. If she's not back by then, we go looking for her."

* * *

Louise slowed to a stop, placing her hand against the surface of the ranger station's outer wall. She peered in through the jagged crack that would serve as her entrance. It was easily wide enough for her slim build to pass through. She and Siesta had used it as an entry point when they had attempted to sneak around the pseudogiant to retrieve the Perin B3.

That felt like such a long time ago now.

Her rifle out to her side, Louise sidled through the split in the concrete. The sharp edges snagged at her coat and she had to duck underneath a section of bent rebar. It was mildly troublesome, but she'd rather this than walking through the main entrance. Siesta had always told Louise that if she were out on her own stealth was her best option. Don't fight if you don't have to.

She emerged within the boundaries of the ranger station. To her right was an old truck left derelict next to a low set of garages. On her left, there was a much taller building with two garage doors on its face and dirty windows wrapping around up high. One of the doors was wedged halfway open, dented outward.

Louise stayed low and moved forward, crouching at the nose of the truck.

The ranger station was quiet, eerily so. Louise cast a calculating look around the compound and she found nothing immediately alarming. The destruction left by the pseudogiant served as a reminder of what had happened here. Holes in the walls of the brick buildings left rubble strewn about in a mess nobody was willing to tidy up.

Oddly, all of the corpses that had been here were gone. Louise knew that stalkers buried their dead, but she wasn't so sure about the bandits. They didn't seem the types for that. Nevertheless, there wasn't one body to be found. Perhaps they had actually come to retrieve their dead, or maybe the mutants had done their work for them.

From here, she couldn't see the corpse of the pseudogiant behind the other buildings. She didn't feel particularly inclined to go looking for it either. She just wanted to get this done. Louise looked ahead, easily spying the tall red brick building at the back of the compound. It was the largest structure within the walls.

She briefly contemplated whether or not she should have gotten Siesta and Kirche to come along as well, but she swiftly put it out of mind. Louise was confident she could handle this on her own. She was just getting the shotgun from the stash, after all. She would be back at the Skadovsk in no time. Siesta probably wouldn't even realize she had been gone.

Steeling herself she scurried out across open ground like a rat, moving straight towards the largest building. In there, her stash was nestled in a small room in the basement. The front entrance, previously a set of wooden double doors, was now a gaping hole courtesy of the pseudogiant. She swept into the foyer with her rifle ready, taking care not to stumble over any loose bricks or sections of drywall.

So far, everything seemed to be going well.

Louise moved to the back of the room, going for the stairs that led beneath ground level. She activated the light lashed to the Kalashnikov's forend, preparing for the darkness that awaited her.

The stairs creaked ominously as she tentatively made her way down. At the bottom she moved into a perpendicular hallway that led to the left. Flashlight illuminating her path, she discovered that it was much more wet down here than it was during her previous visit. There wasn't a buildup of water on the floor or anything, but there was a heavy dampness that permeated the air.

She wasted no time in admiring the unfavorable conditions. She moved quickly to the end of the hallway and entered the room on her right. It looked to have been a storage room of sorts during another time. Shelves with aged cleaning supplies lined one wall and against another there was a desk with a wheeled chair nearby.

As she moved across the room the floor creaked ominously underfoot, but she ignored it. The desk was her target, and she prayed everything was how she had left it. Kneeling at the side of the desk she was relieved at her findings. Wedged against the wall was the short barreled break-action shotgun with an accompanying pouch of shells nearby.

Louise laid her rifle down and reached her arm in the narrow space between the desk and wall. Her fingers caught at the shotgun's sling and she dragged it out from its hiding place. She performed a similar action to gain possession of the ammunition. She broke the gun open, sliding two shells into the vacant chambers. That taken care of, she slung the weapon across her back cavalry style and retrieved her rifle.

As she strode back across the room to leave she froze midway. The rotted floor creaked much more ominously than before, and Louise even felt it sag a few inches under her feet. She stared downward, momentarily petrified. She knew this building didn't go any further down into the ground, so what in the world was underneath her?

Louise remained perfectly still for a few moments. Eventually, she let out a deep sigh of relief.

 _Just have to be careful. Move slowly and..._

Louise didn't get the chance to finish her thoughts. Taking another step was the straw to break the camel's back. The floor gave way with the crying of splitting wood, matching the piercing shriek that flew from her mouth as she fell into a pit of darkness.

* * *

On the sweeping curved road that led up to the ranger station, Siesta paused. She stared at the compound ahead, contemplating on waltzing through the main entrance, but quickly deciding better. She glanced over her shoulder at Kirche.

"Time is it?"

Kirche gave her a puzzled glance. "You've got the watch, not me."

Siesta turned her gaze to her own wrist. "You don't have a watch? Well, its ten to eleven now..."

"Over an hour," Kirche pointed out.

Wrapping her hands around her rifle, Siesta set off again and left the road. Kirche followed behind. She would question why they were taking what seemed like a detour, but she knew that strutting in through the main gate like they owned the place might not be the best idea, especially considering what had happened here.

"Are we going in through the side or something?" Kirche asked.

"Yes. It'll be our lucky day if nobody's hanging around."

Kirche bit her lip. "And if somebody is hanging around?"

Siesta eyed her briefly. "Then it just might be their unlucky day."

As they moved through the brush, Kirche stared at the back of Siesta's head in contemplation. "Siesta, can I ask you something?"

Unseen to Kirche, Siesta raised her brow in anticipation. "Sure?"

"Do you like killing people?"

Siesta didn't respond at first. She waited until they began to near the crack in the wall. "It's... well it's not that I enjoy doing it. It's just that after four years I've gotten to be pretty good at it."

Despite Siesta telling her that she didn't enjoy the act of killing other people, Kirche still felt that was kind of a morbid thing to say. Nevertheless... "Taking it to an art form then I suppose?" She snorted sarcastically.

Siesta chuckled. "There's seriously nothing artistic about turning somebody's brains to mush and blowing them out the back of their skull."

They moved up on the crack, taking position on either side. Kirche stared straight at Siesta as she shrugged off her backpack. She stared back.

"What?" Siesta asked, leaning her gear next to the opening. The kevlar helmet cast a shadow over her eyes.

Kirche's gaze turned uncomfortable. The everlasting pit that had formed in her stomach had grown much larger over the past hour and continued to do so at a steady rate. "What if we go in there and... you know... find her and she's... you know."

"If we find her and she's dead?"

"Siesta..."

Siesta narrowed her eyes. "Come on, Kirche. It doesn't take an hour to go from the Skadovsk, to here, and back. Something happened. We should be prepared for the worst."

"And what if she is dead? What happens then, Siesta?"

Siesta's narrow-eyed stare morphed to a dark glare. "We cross that bridge when we come to it." She moved to squeeze through the gap in the wall.

Kirche stared after her, sighing. When Siesta had successfully made it through to the other side, it was Kirche's turn to shuffle through the crack. She immediately found an issue.

"Come on," Siesta hissed over her shoulder, the H&K's barrel sweeping across the rest of the compound. "Quit taking your time."

"How did you get through here? I can't."

Siesta looked. "What do you mean you can't...?" Her gaze flattened. "Seriously, Kirche?"

"Is this why you took your backpack off?" The redhead asked.

Siesta stared, and stared longer. "Your boobs are just too big."

"I can't help that," Kirche grunted, forcing her body through the crack. "Your chest isn't that much smaller than mine, honestly."

Siesta rolled her eyes. "My vest squishes them a little." She waited impatiently until Kirche finally succeeded in getting through. The Germanian brushed herself off and readied her rifle.

"Where is it?" Siesta asked.

Kirche knew she was obviously referring to the stash. "In the red building, the one where we first met. It's in the basement."

Siesta's gaze quickly turned to the building in question. "Do you remember exactly where?"

"Yes."

"Then let's move."

The pair darted out through the open. Reaching the building, they swiftly moved in through the gaping entrance with rifles ready.

"Siesta," Kirche said quietly. "You've forgotten your backpack, you know."

"I won't need it in here," Siesta replied. "I'll get it on the way out." She eyed Kirche. "You know where her stash is, right? Lead the way."

Apprehensive, Kirche moved ahead towards the back of the foyer. Siesta followed behind, creeping down the stairs after the redhead. They both activated flashlights as they descended, lighting their way in the dark. Kirche moved left into the hallway, walking all the way to the end.

In the entrance of the room, Kirche halted. "Oh bugger..."

"Bugger?" Siesta echoed, her stomach twisting. "What is..." Looking around Kirche, her eyes rested on the gaping hole in the middle of the floor. "Oh bugger is right."

Kirche creeped into the room with her light aimed at the hole, allowing Siesta inside. "Do you think she fell down there?"

Siesta inched closer, scuttling back a few steps when she heard the floor groan dangerously. She aimed her light down, highlighting dank concrete walls and a floor with a stagnant body of water. There was no way to tell how deep it was. "She might have."

"Do you see her?"

Siesta didn't respond. Instead, she called out down into the hole. "Louise! Hey!"

No response came back.

"You don't think she drowned?" Kirche asked warily.

Siesta shook her head. "No. She'd be floating if she did."

"Then where is she?"

"What would you do if you fell down there and didn't break your neck?" Siesta asked.

"I don't know," Kirche replied. "Look for a way out?"

"Exactly," Siesta said confidently. "Louise is plenty of things, but she isn't a complete dumbass. There has to be a way down somewhere, let's look around."

"We can't just jump down the hole?"

Siesta left the room, eyeing the length of the hallway. "That's our last resort. We don't know how deep the water is, and we won't know the way out."

They abandoned the room and quickly got to searching the others. Pushing open doors they found nothing encouraging. The rooms were mostly the same, storage, filled with junk that was useless to them. Exploring the hallways further, they found that there were no stairs descending further into the ground. Just when Kirche was considering that the hole was their only way down, Siesta offered up a better idea.

"We'll check some of the other buildings," she said as they met at the foot of the stairs. "Do you remember that map Owl showed us when we were looking for Item 62?"

Kirche nodded an affirmative. "I do."

"It showed there was something underneath this place too. That's probably where Louise has ended up. There has to be an actual entrance around somewhere."

Fully agreeing, Kirche followed Siesta up and outside. Standing outside the building Siesta said nothing, veering to the right towards the large garage building in the corner of the compound. Kirche followed her in a light jog. They moved in through the wedged open door, flashlights darting over the musty interior. There were two hydraulic lifts made for hoisting vehicles up in the air. The first was at its lowest, set into the concrete flooring, while the other wasn't fairing quite as well. A roofless UAZ had fallen to the floor, lying on its roof with the windshield crushed under the weight. The lift the vehicle had been hoisted upon was now nothing more than a mess of bent hydraulic cylinders and twisted steel. Siesta figured it was likely the pseudogiant's doing when it had been hiding away in here.

A back room was highlighted under the glare of flashlights behind dirty glass windows. Kirche pointed out the accompanying doorway, and the two stalkers swept inside. They found dusty desks, shelves. Offices, it seemed. They moved into the next room, finding more of the same. At the end of the room there was a wooden door left ajar.

Siesta poked her head and rifle into the room. A twisting mesh stairway spiraled down into a large room. Leading, Siesta's boots rang on the metal as she descended. They purposefully ignored the groans of protest released by the aged steel. Reaching the thankfully solid concrete floor they found that the room was mostly storage. Skeletal shelves lined the room holding boxed parts that never had their chance to see use.

At the end of the room a wide sheet metal locker was overturned with one door open and its contents spilled out on the floor. More parts and such, Siesta observed as she moved closer. She wasn't much interested in the locker itself. It was what it had been hiding that caught her eye.

The locker had previously concealed a small alcove before it had been tipped over. In the alcove, a heavy steel door not unlike the one underneath the electrical substation was left wide open. Siesta looked to the accompanying card reader, finding it smashed. Her flashlight revealed a derelict elevator with a metal staircase twisting around the shaft at right angles.

Siesta pointed out the scuffed makings on the floor that coincided with the door swing. The door had seen regular and recent use. "Somebody, or something, has been coming through here."

"So this would be the entrance then?" Kirche asked.

"Probably," Siesta nodded.

"How lucky of us to find in the first place we looked."

Siesta scoffed. "We would have found it eventually."

Kirche watched as her senior stalker moved through the door to stand at the head of the stairs. "I hope she's alright..."

"Me too," Siesta quietly replied.

They entered the claustrophobic stairwell, romping downward at a steady pace. At the bottom they met with a doorway on the other side of which was a lengthy passage. It was wide, giving the pair plenty of welcome breathing room. Siesta's light shone, showing thick metal doors lining the walls across from each other at even intervals. Her light wasn't powerful enough to reveal any end to stretch of corridor.

"What is this place?" Kirche asked, following behind Siesta as she moved in.

Siesta tried the first door, finding the handle firmly stuck. "Who knows? Some kind of bunker I guess? Maybe a fallout shelter."

Kirche had already learned from Siesta what such a shelter was for. Radiation was an invisible danger in these lands. She tried the door opposite to find it was stuck as well. "They're stuck."

"Or locked," Siesta added. She moved ahead to the next door with Kirche on her heels. It was also stuck. She highlighted the handle with the light at the end of the rifle. A scowl crossed her face. "Or corroded right to hell."

Kirche did the same with the opposite door. "How does something rust down here? Obviously it can't rain."

"Well no," Siesta answered, continuing ahead. "But can't you feel it? It's super moist down here."

Kirche made a noise of disgust. "Humid," she corrected.

Siesta turned to her. "What? Don't like the word moist?"

"I don't, honestly. It's just one of those words... that..." Kirche eyes suddenly widened as she trailed off. Her rifle snapped up to bear, aiming past Siesta. In turn, Siesta whirled around with her own rifle ready.

"What?" Siesta hissed. "What was it?"

"I saw something," Kirche croaked, her voice shaking with sudden fear.

"Aren't you always the one who 'sees something'?" Siesta quipped darkly.

"No. Last time it was Louise who saw something. That monster underneath the substation."

Siesta remembered that all too well. She had asked around and nobody else had any idea of what that thing could have been. In a rare choice she moved her rifle's selector to fully-automatic. "What did it look like?"

"I-I don't know... it looked human, I think. It-it was just a shape."

Siesta thought in a tense silence. She glanced quickly to Kirche, finding her performing a peculiar action. Kirche had a finger wedged in her ear and a grimace on her face as she moved the digit about. "What's wrong? Hey!" Siesta hissed. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Kirche insisted, returning her trigger hand to the Kalashnikov.

"What you saw, could it have been Louise?"

"I don't think so. It was too tall."

"Shit," Siesta swore lowly. "Come on." She moved forward, rifle at her shoulder to light the way.

They stopped at a door left open. Siesta peered inside, sweeping her rifle around. It wasn't a large room, filled with military style bunks caked in collected dust and grime. Her theory of an underground bunker or a fallout shelter now seemed like a distinct possibility.

They continued on. The passage was completely straight.

"Where the hell did it go?" Siesta asked quietly.

"Well I don't know," Kirche replied in a hush yet hurried tone. "It just kind of disappeared."

Siesta didn't like the sound of this at all. She wondered at the kind of hellish scenario they were getting themselves into now. Their pace didn't slow as they highlighted the jammed doors along the way. Eventually, the passage opened up into a massive area that had the two stalkers gawking.

Siesta's light dimly revealed the ceiling, but pointing it down revealed that the pit might as well have been bottomless. On either side the walls were lined with circular openings that opened at a downward angle and were easily large enough in diameter for them to stand inside. No liquid of any kind funneled from the openings, but Siesta suspected that some sort of waste would have at some point.

Her reasoning for that, along with half of her gawking, was because the entire room absolutely reeked.

"Jeez!" Siesta coughed, freeing an arm and placing her sleeve to bar her nostrils. "It smells like freaking rotten asshole in here."

Kirche coughed as well, followed by a retching noise. "Founder above that is just the worst smell."

Siesta angled her light ahead. She couldn't see the other end of the seemingly endless room of horrible smells. The only way across seemed to be a catwalk bridge supported by steel beams mounted to the ceiling. "Look at the shit you get yourself into, Louise," she muttered distantly.

"I'm going to feel like an absolute idiot if she isn't actually down here," Kirche pointed out.

"Yeah, me too," Siesta responded. Thankfully the catwalk didn't creak or groan in protest as she tested her weight on it. Without a word, she began advancing. Kirche followed behind, apprehensive to the nth degree.

"Have I ever told you about my fear of heights?" Kirche asked, her voice echoing on the concrete walls.

"Have I ever told you about mine?"

Kirche stared at the back of Siesta's helmet. Its black surface dully reflected the light from her flashlight. "You're afraid of heights?"

Siesta nodded. "Deathly afraid."

The Germanian peered down into the darkness, shuddering. "You don't seem very bothered."

"Stay in the Zone long enough and you'll start hiding things pretty well," Siesta said solemnly. She cast Kirche a sideways glance over her shoulder. "Are you hiding anything?"

"What? Are you accusing me of something right now?"

Siesta scoffed. "No, I mean are you bottling anything up?"

Kirche paused before responding. "No."

"Don't bullshit me."

Kirche sighed. "I've killed. Do you know how badly that haunts me every day?"

"The things I've done haunt me too, Kirche. In my dreams I see the faces every night."

"What faces?" Kirche asked hesitantly.

"Of people I've killed. Of friends that I've lost."

Kirche's frown deepened. "I think I know how that feels. When we got into that fight with the mercenaries, afterwards when I saw that man who had his head blown half open... God, his face. I can still see it every time I close my eyes."

Siesta chuckled darkly. "You know, I can't even remember my own mother's face anymore. And I loved my mother dearly, but I can still see the face of the first man I killed as clear as day."

Kirche leaned out around Siesta. She still couldn't see an end to this horrid bridge. She sighed again. "You can't remember your mother's face?"

"It's been over four years since I've seen her. It might as well be a lifetime ago now," Siesta said. She glanced towards the Germanian. "I can be a good shoulder to cry on, you know."

"Is that so?"

"I mean it. If you need a cuddle buddy I'm totally here for you."

Kirche snorted. Cuddle buddy? "You really know how to break a mood. You say the weirdest things at the weirdest times."

"Levity helps," Siesta pointed out. "I've been Louise's cuddle buddy already."

"What?" Kirche couldn't help but laugh. "You and Louise cuddle?"

"Just the one time. She was crying."

"When was this?" Kirche asked curiously, not remembering that at all.

"You were asleep," Siesta answered.

"Seems like I'm always asleep, doesn't it?" Kirche remarked sourly. When Siesta didn't respond, she spoke again. "So who was your shoulder to cry on?"

"Nobody."

Kirche winced, and said nothing more. She could see the other end of the room coming up. Siesta said nothing either and she didn't need to. She could practically feel Kirche wincing behind her, but it was true, she never did have a shoulder to cry on. She was sure any of her fellow stalkers during her early days in the Zone would have been more than willing, but she felt uncomfortable even considering it. Sure, there were good men who wouldn't make an advance on her in such a moment of weakness, but in a place like the Zone those men were few and far between.

After her first year in the Zone, a year filled with losing friends she had made, Siesta had begun to stray away from any close friendship. She hated losing people she cared about. She had quickly gained the reputation of an aloof loner doing that, coming and going at random and seldom pulling jobs with others.

But that had come to a swift change when she had found Louise that day in the marshes. She had put her fears and apprehensions aside when befriending the pink-haired mage and hadn't regretted as of yet. If they did find Louise's corpse down here somewhere she knew exactly what was going to happen. Her grip tightened on her rifle.

She would finally reach her breaking point.

The two girls were both relieved to finally have a solid surface underfoot once again. The passage here was wider than the previous, and immediately to their right there was a doorway leading to a short set of stairs. Siesta quickly poked inside, finding only an empty control room. She rejoined Kirche, and they moved on.

They didn't get far. On their left Siesta spied another open entrance, a wide one that would have fit a nice set of double doors. She looked inside, barely noticing Kirche brush past. Inside, a metal stairway extended down along one side of the room. The room itself was fairly large, filled with crates and sets of barrels tied down onto wooden pallets. On the ceiling there was a disused overhead crane.

However, the contents of the room didn't interest Siesta, because near the bottom of the stairs she saw a figure dart away into cover.

A figure with a distinct head of pink hair.

Siesta's heart leapt up into her throat, but her relief was short-lived. She immediately felt a heavy pressure inside of her head. The unannounced arrival of a throbbing headache brought on a burst of pain that nearly brought her to her knees which was accompanied by a dull and annoying ringing in her ears.

Knowing Kirche had moved past, Siesta turned towards the Germanian to announce her discovery. "Kirche! I just saw..." Except that Kirche wasn't there. Siesta was stunned into complete silence. How had Kirche disappeared so quickly? She knew that Kirche was smarter than to just run off on her own, especially down here in a place like this.

Her ears rang again, loudly. Another shot of pain rocketed through her head. She couldn't suppress the groan she released. She urged to throw her helmet off and tear at her head in a vain attempt to scrape away the pain. Siesta resisted.

She knew what was likely going on. The area was heavy with psychic energy that was surely bad for her health. It could merely be a stagnant psy-field that just happened to be occupying this area. A headache and ringing ears was a sure sign of that, but it could also be something much more sinister. A psychic mutant could also be making camp down here. Maybe it was just a psy-dog, which was a threatening mutant on its own but it could be dealt with just as well.

Or, it could be a controller. She really hoped that it wasn't a controller. If it was, they could all be dead already. If there was a list of mutants Siesta was seriously afraid of the pseudogiant would be at the top, but the controller would be a close second.

Against her better judgement, Siesta flew down the stairs. She had seen Louise, she knew it. "Louise!" She called out into the room. "Hey! It's me!"

She reached the bottom, rifle at her shoulder. She nearly choked when she saw what she was sure was the hem of Louise's long coat fluttering away behind another set of crates. She advanced quickly.

"Louise!" She called out again in a hiss. "Seriously, stop running! It's me." She rounded the set of crates, flashlight up.

And what she saw had her stopping dead in her tracks.

* * *

 _A/N: And I know what most of you are probably thinking. Maybe something along the lines of: 'Theanna, what the hell!? What kind of freaking cliff-hanger is this!?'_

 _I'd apologize, but I'm not really sorry. :P_

 _This chapter was coming up on nine and a half thousand words, so I decided to cut it here, not only for that, but because I think the next scene will make for a great opener for the next chapter._

 _Also, since I'm sure many of you don't know, it was recently pointed out to me that Stalker Zero has been recommended on tvtropes. Now, I just happen to love tvtropes, so as you may imagine this makes me absolutely giddy. So, to the troper helltamirre, thanks!_

 _So, until next time._


	23. The Life of a Stalker XII

_The Life of a Stalker XII_

 _Zaton_

 _11:21_

Louise felt that she was in a rather tough spot.

Soaked to the core, Louise ran blindly through pitch black corridors. She guided herself by running a hand against the wall, although for the fourth time she had just crashed face-first into solid concrete. Louise shook off the impact like a flick on the wrist, and continued on. She had barely even felt it.

Louise didn't know what was going on. She remembered falling through the floor, but the pain roaring through her skull clouded everything. All Louise knew was that something was following her, something that wanted her to die. It had taken the rifle right from her hands, and Louise couldn't even guess as to how. The Kalashnikov had been ripped away from her grasp by an invisible force and thrown dozens of feet away.

Pistol in one hand and flashlight in the other, Louise kept moving as fast as her legs would carry her in the darkness. Activating the flashlight felt like a death sentence, but she didn't slow her pace for a stealthier approach to the situation. Louise could barely hear a thing over the ringing in her ears, and the pain in her head would soon breach into the realm of completely unbearable.

Another wall slammed in to, Louise turned and kept moving. She didn't get far, because what she saw ahead had her frozen in place.

Ahead - far ahead - were flashlights. Louise stared. Could they see her, or was she still out of range? There was no way to tell what kind of people were wandering around down here, if they were even people in the first place. She quickly decided on a course of action.

Hide.

Her eyes had been steadily been growing used to the darkness, so Louise could make out everything as blurry grey shapes, but nothing more. Slightly ahead and to her right was an opening in the passageway. Louise moved towards it. Through the doorway she found stairs, though she couldn't see well enough to run down them, she'd just go toppling end over end until she reached the bottom. Louise breathed deep. The flashlights grew closer.

Louise slowly felt her way down the stairs. When she neared the bottom she could pick out footsteps separate from her own closing in. She did her best to move faster without falling flat on her face.

When she reached the floor, Louise had expected there to be another step, so she stumbled forward. Recovering, she immediately put that out of mind. A wild glance over her shoulder showed her that the hallway she had been in was now burning with battery powered light. She had to move.

Louise was only half a second too slow when she leaped into cover. Her eyes burned under the glare of the flashlight. She put her back to what appeared to be a stack of crates tied down onto a pallet and ground her teeth together. She heard somebody call out, but she couldn't understand a word of it. It wasn't a different language, it was just gibberish, muted and distorted.

That only made Louise's fear soar to new heights.

Somebody was coming down the stairs, that much was obvious, so Louise ran again, ignoring the distorted voice. Whatever was coming for her was not human. Louise ducked sideways behind more crates, this time a row of loaded pallets.

Louise stopped, and held her breath. There was no more noise. The light was gone. She whipped around in confusion. What was going on?

When Louise heard the footsteps it felt like her stomach solidified into concrete. Something was standing in front of her. In the pitch black it was invisible, and like a bloodsucker, Louise could feel its eerie presence.

Did Louise want to see what was about to tear her to shreds? Not really. Nevertheless, she felt she might as well try to defend herself. The Sig was ready to fire. All Louise had to do was pull the trigger.

Louise flicked on her flashlight, and saw something that really threw her for a loop.

She had expected something ugly. Something mutated beyond recognition. Her flashlight aimed slightly low, Louise instead saw a pair of legs, human legs, dressed in black shoes, black leggings, and a matching black skirt. Louise slowly travelled her light upward, moving her pistol along with it.

A tiny face framed by locks of pink hair stared back, but only for a split second. The flashlight's glare seemed to be too much for the other girl to handle, so she shielded her eyes.

"Stop pointing that thing at me, would you?" The other girl spat haughtily. "Founder, my eyes are going to melt."

Louise was completely frozen in place. She didn't know what to do. Both pistol and light began to shake in her hands. This wasn't right. That voice... The fear grew colder.

The other girl peeked around her hand, and subsequently found that Louise's light was still pointed right at her face. "I said stop pointing that blasted thing at me! Are you deaf or something? God..."

The light fell a little, but the pistol stayed up. The other girl managed to get a good view of Louise now, and scoffed loudly. "Look at you. Honestly, you look horrible. Disgusting," the other girl critiqued, moving forward. She pinched her nose. "Founder above! Have you smelled yourself lately? Would it kill you to have a wash?"

Louise drew back the Sig's hammer with a very audible click. The other girl stopped in her tracks. "N-No," Louise stammered pitifully. "Don't... d-don't come."

The other girl huffed. "Oh, what are you going to do with that? Shoot me? Was that whole cocking the hammer thing supposed to be intimidating? Please."

Louise kept the pistol trained on the other girl. "Who... who are you?"

The other girl puffed out her chest proudly. "I am Louise Francoise le Blanc de la Valliére, the third daughter of the Duke of La Valliére, and –"

"No!" Louise screamed. Her finger twitched dangerously against the trigger, threatening to drop the primed hammer at any moment. "No you are not! Who are you!?"

"Yes I am. Who are you?"

"I am Louise!" Louise yelled.

"Hmm?" The other girl leaned forward. "Of course you are. You're Louise. Just Louise. Right? I mean, look at you!" She snickered condescendingly, and resumed her advance. "You're not even worthy of the Valliére name. What would Mother think of you now? Probably the same thing she's always thought: a worthless failure. I'm sure she's glad you're gone, just like Éléonore, and just like Cattleya, who spent her entire life just pitying the pathetic zero you are."

"No..." Louise sucked in a deep breath. "NO!" She bellowed, thrusting the pistol forward. "SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!"

Louise pulled the trigger.

And missed.

Louise felt her wrist enveloped in an iron-clad grip that threw her aim off just in time. She stood in shock before trying to retain her firearm, but failed when her arm was twisted around and the pistol wrenched from her grasp. It clattered uselessly to the floor, along with the flashlight.

The flashlight rolled and faced the pair. Louise spun around, just in time to receive a series of punches to her stomach that sent her stumbling back, the breath gone from her lungs. Before she could recover, Louise felt her hair grasped and pulled. She screamed, but was silenced when a fist to the jaw sent her reeling to the floor.

Louise squirmed and shuffled back. She tasted blood. On the floor, she studied the figure that stood above, dimly highlighted by her fallen flashlight. The girl looked exactly like her down to every detail, aside from the fact that she lacked the stalker garb and scars. It was like a past version of herself had come to visit, a very angry and very insane past version of herself.

And then suddenly, Louise felt it bubbling up within. Pure rage. She couldn't remember ever feeling this way, not even when the bandits had almost raped her and Kirche at the ranger station. The anger enveloped every fiber of her being, and there was nothing she could do to push it back.

Louise wanted blood. She felt a primal urge to kill, and to smash until there was nothing left.

Releasing an animalistic scream, Louise shot to her feet and charged forward at what felt like the speed of light. Her hands found the fabric of a collar, and then she pushed with all her strength until her clone's back found the surface of the stacked crates. Louise cocked her arm back, and her fist rocketed forward with far more force than she thought she was capable of, smashing her opponent's right eye and sending her head backwards against the crates. Louise didn't let up when she heard the other girl groan in pain, she hit again and again, feeling more satisfied with each blow.

Louise's next swing was caught. She was thrown off balance when a knee sunk into her stomach. As she doubled over she was grappled, and then thrown backwards. A deep metallic thwunk resonated through the room when Louise's head found a place to rest against the rusted surface of an overturned barrel. She weakly cried out in agony, her head swimming. A weight settled on her torso, and Louise was horrified to find that she was being straddled by herself.

And now there was a knife coming for her.

There was no time for Louise to contemplate how this terrifying apparition had gotten hold of a bladed weapon. In a blind panic, Louise gasped her clone's wrist as the knife came down, stalling the blade, but not for long. Louise found her shaking arms overpowered as the knife slowly continued its descent.

"No... no..." The knife came closer. "Oh God... no... no!" The tip of the blade pricked at Louise's coat.

At the edge of her hearing, Louise heard a distinct series of sounds. A long burst of fully-automatic gunfire. It sounded so far away, but it couldn't have been. Louise heard the sounds of bullets whizzing and ricocheting off the walls.

Louise blinked, expecting death, but finding something drastically different. The agony in her head remained, but the ringing in her ears washed away, taking her anger with it.

And now, above her, was no longer a twisted visage of herself. Instead, with a bloody eye and nose, was a manically angry Siesta, although the anger on Siesta's face didn't last long. It melted away into confusion, and then morphed to complete shock. Siesta immediately relieved the pressure on the knife, and let it drop away to the floor.

"W-What...? You... what?" Siesta muttered, seeing who she was about to stab. She rolled off Louise, and slumped to the floor on her back.

Louise couldn't believe her eyes. Her breathing heavy and labored, she could only stare up into darkness as the silence in the room grew deafening. What had happened? Why had she seen herself, rather than Siesta? Had Siesta seen something similar in her place? Why had she felt such a deep rage all of a sudden, and how had it disappeared so quickly? So many questions, but Louise didn't feel any urge to open her mouth. It felt like her head had split open.

Louise was just relieved she wasn't about to be stabbed anymore.

Footfalls rang out on the metal stairs. It was Kirche's voice that called out. "Siesta! Are you down here?"

Louise struggled to a sit, and looked down to Siesta, who stared blankly upward. She blinked a few times, and her face lit up. "Yeah, Kirche! We're here!" Siesta shouted.

"We?" Kirche called back. The light of her flashlight neared. Louise saw the Germanian round the row of crates, and shielded her face from the light. "God... Louise! S-Siesta! What happened to you two?"

"I got a few ideas," Siesta moved to a sitting position. "None of them very good."

Kirche moved in on the girls. She picked up Siesta's rifle from the floor along the way, and looked between Siesta and Louise with a face etched in disbelief. "Were you fighting each other?"

Louise meant to reply after spitting a string of bloody saliva onto the floor, but Siesta beat her. "Apparently. Shit, my freakin' head." Siesta turned to Louise. "Are you alright?"

Running her hand over her heart, Louise nodded. "Yes, I'm..." She croaked. "I'm fine. I thought that was it for me then."

"What happened?" Kirche asked again.

"Siesta almost stabbed me," Louise said.

Kirche gaped, and turned to Siesta. "Why did you do that!?"

"I didn't mean to," Siesta grumbled.

"It's fine anyway," Louise continued. "Because I think I almost shot Siesta in the face."

"You did?" Siesta asked, confused. "I guess that explains that loud bang then."

"You didn't see the gun?"

"No?" Siesta said as if it should have been obvious.

Louise stared. "What did you see?"

Siesta thought for a moment. "When I came around the crates, I saw... uh, myself. Like, in a maid's uniform. What did you see?"

"I saw myself," Louise answered. "In my academy uniform."

Kirche glanced between the two girls frantically. "What are you two on about? You saw yourselves?"

"I... I don't even know how to explain it," Louise admitted. She hissed as she felt over the growing lump on the back of her head.

"It was a controller," Siesta growled, easing herself to her feet. She picked up her knife.

Looking around, Louise noticed several objects on the floor. Her own pistol and flashlight were the first and foremost, but she also saw Siesta's helmet a ways away. Kirche had Siesta's rifle, and Louise could only guess at when or how that had been dropped.

Louise disregarded those thoughts quickly. A controller? Siesta had told her about those on one occasion, and from what she had heard such a mutant was something you definitely didn't want to run into on the best of days. "A c- controller? There's a controller here somewhere?"

"Seems like it," Siesta said, watching as Louise struggled to her feet.

"So those things about them are true then?" Louise asked. "They can make you see things that aren't there?"

"Yeah, they can," Siesta answered, setting her helmet back on her head. "They get in your mind and start messing with you. I don't know if it's for their own freaking amusement or something, but it definitely wanted one of us to kill the other."

Kirche stared, mouth half open. "Controller? That... was that the thing I...?"

Siesta settled her gaze on the red-head in an instant. "That thing you what? What happened to you anyway?"

"I could ask you the same!" Kirche retorted. "I walked past you and –"

"Yeah and you disappeared," Siesta cut in.

"No, you disappeared!" Kirche insisted. "I kept on walking, and I was certain you were right behind me. Founder above, I could hear your footsteps! I turned around to ask you where we should go next, and you weren't even there!"

"Fuck," Siesta spat. "That thing really got into our heads, didn't it?"

"What did you do next?" Louise asked as she retrieved her pistol and light from the floor.

"I went back, obviously," Kirche explained. "I-In the hallway up there, I ran into this thing staring into this room."

"And you shot it?" Siesta asked expectantly.

"Well of course I shot it!" Kirche exclaimed. "I wasn't going to ask it how its day had been!"

Siesta moved towards the Germanian and accepted her rifle. "Where is it now? At the top of the stairs?"

Kirche nodded, and looked to Louise. "God, Louise. You're soaked."

Louise flapped one of her arms, sending droplets to the floor. "I've noticed, thank you." She noticed Siesta giving her a look. "What?"

Siesta stared a moment longer, before clicking her tongue. "Not the time. Let's go."

It didn't take much of an imagination to guess at what Siesta was thinking. Louise stopped the dark-haired girl as she turned away. "No, if you've got something to say to me then say it."

Whirling around, Siesta stomped the short distance and set her face inches from Louise's. "What hell were you thinking? Coming out here alone? Look at this mess you got yourself in!"

Louise glared. "It should have been fine. I was only going for the stupid stash. It would have been a waste for all of us to go."

"Oh, yeah, waste of time?" Siesta scoffed, rolling her eyes. "You haven't even got the fucking shotgun if you haven't noticed."

Checking her back, Louise realized that the shotgun was indeed missing. She had no idea when or where it had disappeared. "Oh, for the love of... whatever then, let's just go."

"No, you know what? I'm not done bitching you out yet," Siesta growled.

"Um, Siesta," Kirche spoke up. "You just said this isn't the time. We should get out of here."

Siesta promptly ignored Kirche.

"You're going to bitch me out?" Louise growled, swearing in her growing anger. "You're going to bitch me out after you just tried to stab me?"

"Don't give me that shit. You tried to shoot me in the face!" Siesta retorted.

"Oh, so what then, you're just mad I went out on my own and got into this mess?"

"Yes I'm mad!" Siesta spread out her arms in emphasis. "Just look around!"

Louise ground her teeth. "You go out on your own all the time!" She pointed out. "What makes me different all of a sudden?"

"Because you don't know shit, that's what."

"Oh, I don't know shit, do I?" Louise said haughtily.

Siesta leaned in closer. "You can be a real bitch sometimes, you know that?"

"I'm a bitch? Now let me tell you who the real bitch around here is."

"Oh my God, quit it!" Kirche yelled, gaining two swift glares. She matched them with her own. "Can't you two just settle this later? Or should we just stay down here until something else tries to make a meal out of us?"

Sighing, Siesta conceded. "Yeah, fine. Come on." Louise followed behind, grumbling under her breath. Siesta turned on her. "What was that?"

"Nothing."

Kirche waited impatiently until the two girls had passed her, and then took up position at the rear. They moved up the stairs, and at the top they found what Kirche had claimed to run into. Louise stared down, disgusted. It was a humanoid creature, without a scrap of clothing to its name. The muscular body was pale, and dotted all over with veiny tumors that served to give the mutant a lumpy appearance. The head was huge, almost the size of a watermelon with cracked skin and beady, black eyes.

It seemed that Kirche had fired point blank into the creature's back, which tore up its chest with exit wounds. Siesta bumped the mutant's arm with her foot, watching its lifeless face. "This is the closest I've ever been to one of these."

"So this..." Kirche swallowed. "This is a controller then?"

Nodding, Siesta pinched at her nose and hissed. It wasn't broken, but it sure felt like it. "Shit... this freaking thing..."

Louise continued to stare down. "We should go."

"Yeah," Siesta agreed, looking Louise over. "You need to get a new rifle, and I need a drink, or twelve."

"I think I want to get so drunk tonight that I forget this ever happened by tomorrow morning," Kirche said.

Louise nodded vacantly. "You know, that sounds like a great idea."

* * *

 _Army Warehouses_

 _11:41_

Simply put, Montmorency's feet were killing her.

The twisting road that led to the Army Warehouses was decidedly longer than Montmorency and Tabitha had thought. They'd only been walking for a little over two hours, but to Montmorency it felt like an eternity. She was never much of a walker before coming to the Zone, she was a Noble after all, she could either levitate or ride a horse, but such luxuries weren't to be had around here.

Thankfully, Montmorency had her healing magic, and could relieve her aching feet once she was alone.

The road was bordered by steep hills on each side, and as Montmorency and Tabitha rounded the next bend they found themselves coming up on a gate. Two chain link fences swept down from the hills, meeting in a toll gate that was wedged upwards by a stack of concrete slabs. Just beyond the gate was a blue and white bus listing on one side of the road, and on the other was an old bulldozer holding back a stack of loose pipes with its blade. There seemed to be even more derelict vehicles beyond.

Montmorency exhaled in relief. "I hope we're getting close."

Tabitha didn't voice it, but she agreed as they closed in on the gate. They ducked underneath the striped metal tube, and were surprised to find a group of three stalkers coming into view around the shape of the bus. Montmorency stopped, her grip on the Simonov tightening. Tabitha did the same.

The three stalkers were dressed in a camouflage comprised of light and dark greens, with browns mixed in as well. They quickly took notice of the two girls, and turned to face them. They were men of Freedom.

Montmorency was about to wonder what she should do, when she noticed something peculiar.

Crouching at the front of a single-axle GAZ truck, not even three meters away from them, was a Duty stalker. Montmorency didn't have much time to wonder why he was there or if he had hostile intent, because he called to them in a hoarse whisper. "Hey! You two! Don't go any further!"

There was no time to question, because only seconds later the gunfire came, and the three Freedom stalkers were cut down in a hailstorm of lead. It ended just as quickly as it started.

Montmorency jumped back, clutching her rifle. "Bloody hell!"

A handful of Duty stalkers emerged from the brush, coming down the hill on the left. The Duty stalker at the nose of the GAZ stood, eyed Montmorency and Tabitha for a moment longer, and moved to join his comrades. Regrouping around the corpses, the Duty stalkers spared no time in stripping the Freedom stalkers of their weapons and equipment.

Montmorency stared on in disbelief, while Tabitha observed impassively. The Duty stalkers soon left without a word, ascending up the hill to the right. Over the crest of the hill, Montmorency could see the rooftops of several houses.

The two girls finally relaxed their grips on their respective rifles. "We should..." Montmorency swallowed. She supposed the fighting between Duty and Freedom was alive and well. "We should go."

Tabitha nodded as she followed. They both gave the fresh corpses a wide berth.

* * *

While the entire region was commonly referred to as the 'Army Warehouses', there was only one location that would befit such a name.

Freedom's base was a massive compound, surrounded completely by a twelve-foot concrete wall topped with ugly razor wire. Montmorency didn't think it was as impressive as Rostok, but as she neared what she could only assume was the main entrance she grew more and more apprehensive.

Not particularly because of the armed sentries hiding behind sandbags, nor because of the looming watchtower. No, it was merely because of the single man standing casually at the middle of the gate. Donning a complex network of hydraulic cylinders and braided hoses, the heavily armored Freedom stalker wore his exoskeleton with pride while striking an intimidating appearance.

Montmorency knew little about the exoskeletons. The spindly fittings and joints seemed pointless in her mind, but Drifter had once assured her that they did their jobs. The exoskeleton assisted the user's strength, so much so that Drifter had insisted that he had once witnessed a man wearing one go hand to hand with a bloodsucker, and win.

For a faction that called themselves Freedom, Montmorency noted that their base of operations seemed a lot less friendly than she had expected.

While she would refer to such a location as a fortress of sorts, Montmorency knew well enough that if she approached a Freedom stalker and commented on 'how impressive their fortress was', they'd stare at her like she was completely daft. It was for this reason that if she wasn't talking to either Drifter or Tabitha, she usually kept her mouth closed.

Tabitha was on Montmorency's heels as they came up on the entrance. None of the sentries had made any moves of hostility thus far, although they did stare on curiously.

The girls stopped, and the man wearing the exoskeleton greeted them. "Hey," his voice was muffled by his gasmask. "I definitely haven't seen you around. You new?"

Montmorency, still thoroughly nervous, was baffled at how casually this man was speaking. "Y-Yes, I suppose."

The Freedom stalker continued. "We don't get many girls around here."

"Well, no," Montmorency said. She wished she could see if the man's eyes were glancing between herself and Tabitha, but Montmorency couldn't see anything through the gasmask's tinted lenses. "I don't imagine you do."

"So what's your business here?" The Freedom stalker asked. "Looking to crash in our base?"

Crash? Montmorency wondered what he meant, as she didn't really want to crash anything. Just another expression she was unfamiliar with she supposed. "We, um... just want to have a look around."

The Freedom stalker stared, or at least Montmorency thought he did. "A look around?" He chuckled. "Alright, well, go on then. Just don't stir up any trouble, huh?"

Montmorency didn't plan on anything of the sort, so with a quick nod, she and Tabitha were allowed past. Beyond the gate was a wide bridge, beneath which were several sets of train tracks occupied by abandoned railcars. At the end of the bridge another watchtower stood, and as they reached the halfway point a lone Freedom stalker sauntering towards them held up his hand in greeting.

"Hey, come here," Senya Reactor said jovially. "Let's have a little chat."

Montmorency tensed a little. "Um, yes?"

Senya snorted. "Hey relax, would you? You're in Freedom's base. Just don't piss anybody off." Montmorency opened her mouth to assure that she didn't have the intention, but Senya continued on. "We had a slow witted one here once. He pissed everybody off so bad we made him take a hike in the minefield – naked. You should have heard Skinflint cursing when that dude's arm fell on him!"

Montmorency blanched, her eyes the size of dinner plates. "Y-Yes! I-I mean no! I won't upset anybody!"

Senya laughed, throwing his head back. "I said relax, eh? I like to tell that one to anybody who wanders in."

A sigh of relief flew through Montmorency's lips. "So you made that up then?"

"Oh, no," Senya said. "That actually happened."

Montmorency bit her lip and shared a glance with the ever stoic Tabitha. "Oh."

"Most of the Loners around here hang out at the fire by the mess hall," Senya turned around and pointed. "Just go right once you get off the bridge. You won't miss it. I'm sure you'll be welcome there."

Montmorency nodded. "I see. Thank you." The idea of getting off her feet and relaxing held a definite appeal to the blonde. As Senya turned away, something came to Montmorency's mind. "Oh, wait! Can I tell you something?"

Senya stopped. "What?"

Montmorency gave a quick recount of what happened when she and Tabitha had passed through the gate into the area. Senya didn't look pleased at the news when he spat a series of expletives. "I've got to go tell Lukash about that," he said, spinning on his heel and jogging away.

"Was that wise?" Tabitha asked.

"Telling him about what happened? Why wouldn't it be?"

"Choosing sides," Tabitha pointed out.

Montmorency shook her head. "I am not getting involved in their little war." She started walking, and Tabitha dutifully followed behind. "It just seems to me that being on Freedom's good side might be a benefit to us, especially if we're going to be asking around about Siesta here."

Tabitha didn't say anything more as she followed. As the pair reached the end of the bridge, they took notice of the hulking T-80 tank parked at the base of the watchtower. Montmorency easily recognized it as a weapon of war, and she didn't want to see what damage the lengthy cannon could do. After a brief session of staring, the pair moved on.

The girls took Senya's advice, hanging an immediate right after stepping off the bridge. The fire soon came into view, nestled amongst dozens of wooden and metal crates. To the left was a long, flat building; the mess hall. Beyond the fire was the loading area for the trains, a series of concrete platforms underneath the shade of a massive metal canopy.

There were a few Freedom stalkers around the fire, but the majority present were Loners. Montmorency didn't recognize any of them as she swept her gaze over the area, except for one.

Clumsy.

Montmorency almost wanted to turn tail and just leave before he noticed her, but it seemed it was too late. His gaze locked onto hers for a split second, but that was all that was needed. Montmorency new it would come any second now...

"Hey! Monty!"

...And it did.

Montmorency groaned, and Tabitha looked on curiously. "Friend of yours?" The blue-haired girl asked.

"Founder help me..." Montmorency muttered. "No, not really."

"Threat?"

"God, no," Montmorency shook her head as they closed in on the fire. She snorted. "More like an annoyance." Montmorency hadn't seen Clumsy in a while, and she supposed this was why. He was a wiry fellow, only two years older than Montmorency with similar blonde hair that remained eternally unkempt.

During her early days in the Zone Montmorency had held a serious dislike for the aptly named stalker, but he had eventually gotten to leaving her alone for the most part.

Once the girls were within speaking distance, Montmorency glumly greeted. "Hello, Clumsy."

"Hey – come on, come sit with us."

Montmorency and Tabitha walked straight past. "No, thank you," Montmorency said. A few of the stalkers around the fire chuckled in amusement

"Hey, she really likes you Clumsy," one stalker laughed.

Montmorency heard Clumsy grumble out a response, but she didn't pay much attention to it. She just kept walking. She and Tabitha came up on a handful of wooden crates underneath a camouflaged canopy. Montmorency supposed it was good enough, so she eased herself to the ground and put her back to a crate. Nearby, Tabitha opted to sit up high on one of the wooden boxes.

While she desperately wanted to perform some light healing magic on her aching feet, Montmorency knew this definitely wasn't the time or place. Looking towards the fire, she noticed one stalker directing a steady gaze their way. Most of the stalkers were giving her and Tabitha periodic glances, but this particular man stared much longer than most, so Montmorency stared back until he turned away, and continued staring afterward.

When Montmorency noticed Senya strolling into the area, she settled her gaze on him instead. He appeared to be looking for somebody, and when he locked eyes with Montmorency he made a bee-line for her.

As he neared, Montmorency could only wonder what he wanted now. She watched him dig a hand into his pocket.

"Here." Senya loomed over Montmorency and pulled out a small bundle of banknotes.

Montmorency narrowed her eyes. "What would that be for?"

Senya shrugged, and dropped the cash into Montmorency's lap. "Lukash told me to give it to you for giving us the heads up on Duty."

"Oh." Montmorency eyed the money over before pocketing it. "Well, thank you."

"So what are you two doing up here anyway?" Senya asked, plopping down backward onto his bottom. "Sight-seeing?"

While Montmorency didn't really want to talk to this man, she supposed he was a good enough place to start. "We're looking for somebody."

Senya snorted. "Find them?"

"No. Not yet."

"Who is it?" Senya asked. "I know a lot of stalkers."

Montmorency stared for a moment before posing her question. "Have you ever heard of a stalker called Siesta?"

Senya laughed. "Oh yeah, who hasn't?"

"That's who I'm looking for."

"Well I'd tell you where she was if I knew," Senya continued. "She came through here a while back and went through the barrier. Haven't seen her since."

Montmorency nodded. "I've heard that much already. We came here to ask around about her, to see if anybody knows more than that."

"She's probably dead."

"I've been told," Montmorency sighed. "But I need to find her."

Senya hmm'd, looking over his shoulder towards the fire. "Actually... one of those guys over there came back through the barrier, um... late yesterday evening I think."

That got Montmorency's attention. "Who?"

Senya pointed to a stalker currently engaged in a conversation, and Montmorency quickly realized it was the same man who had been staring. "That guy I'm pretty sure. Think his name's Grouse or something. He'd be a good place to start."

Montmorency pursed her lips. "Thank you... what was your name?"

"Senya."

"Thank you, Senya."

Senya nodded and eased himself to his feet. Without another word he departed in the direction of the mess hall. After a short moment, Montmorency stood as well. Tabitha moved to get down from the crate, but Montmorency held up a hand to stop her. "Just wait here," she said. "I'll see if I can't bring him over."

Tabitha nodded.

A little apprehensive, Montmorency strolled over to the fire, approaching the pointed out stalker from behind. Many of the

stalkers began to stare as she neared, and the man she was looking for undoubtedly took notice. He looked over his shoulder to find Montmorency towering over.

"Um, hello," Montmorency greeted.

The stalker gave her a weird look. "Hey?"

"Are you Grouse?"

The stalker slowly nodded. "Yeah."

Montmorency smiled. "Could I talk to you for a minute?"

* * *

Stomping into Tremor's old office, Siesta shrugged off her backpack, roughly threw it in a corner along with her helmet, and stomped right back out.

In the room, Kirche stared through the door until the curtains settled themselves. She turned to Louise. "She's still properly cross at you."

Louise peeled off her damp coat. "I know."

"I can't say I blame her."

Louise glared. "You too? You realize you let me go there by myself."

Crossing her arms, Kirche huffed. "I shouldn't have."

"Turn around."

Kirche raised an eyebrow. "What? What for?"

Louise rolled her eyes. "I'm still wet, so I want to get into something dry."

Kirche felt a little dumb for not realizing that sooner. She turned away, facing the door. The sounds of Louise changing were the only things to break the short silence between them.

"I'm done," Louise finally said.

Turning around, Kirche found Louise fully clothed, sans coat. She looked over the pink-haired girl's face. Siesta seemed to have gotten the worst out of the unintended scuffle, facially at least. Louise's face was bruising near her jaw, but other than that there were no obvious injuries.

Siesta, however, was stuck with a blackening eye and a bleeding nose.

Kirche sighed. While Louise didn't look so roughed up, she was still ghostly pale and her eyes were strangely clouded. "You look like hell."

"I feel like it too," Louise weakly agreed. She made for the door. "I'm going up top."

"Siesta's probably up there," Kirche pointed out.

"I know, that's why I'm going up," Louise said, passing through the doorway.

"Hey," Kirche called. "I'll still take you up on that whole 'getting so drunk we'll forget today ever happened' thing."

Louise peeked back into the room. "I think two bottles will be enough."

Kirche laughed. "I should hope so. We can always get another if need be."

It was a short trip upstairs to the Skadovsk's deck, and Louise felt rather lightweight in only a t-shirt and pants. Her coat would dry soon enough, and she needed a new rifle. Louise felt she could soundly put the latter off till tomorrow morning.

On the Skadovsk's stern deck, Louise found Siesta leaning forward onto the railing. She was plainly smoking a cigarette. Louise stopped a few paces behind the dark-haired stalker, unsure of what to say.

Perhaps, 'you were right and I was wrong' would be a good start.

Louise sighed. "Siesta..." She began.

Siesta didn't turn around. "What do you want?" She grunted. Her voice sounded a little nasally.

"I came to apologize," Louise said, glaring. "You were right, and I was wrong. Is that what you want to hear?"

"Not really," Siesta said.

Louise threw her arms up in frustration and whirled around, stomping back towards the door. "Whatever then. I tried."

Siesta snorted. "Not very hard."

Stopping, Louise balled her fists. She had many faults, she knew, and proper heartfelt apologies were definitely among them.

"Do you know how many friends I've lost over the years?" Siesta asked suddenly.

Louise turned around, frustration fading. She eyed Siesta's back curiously for a few moments before responding. "How many?"

"Twenty-four."

Louise's curiosity turned to disbelief. "Twenty-four?" She echoed.

"Yeap," Siesta nodded. "Most of them were in my first year."

Deflated, Louise stepped closer. "I..." She didn't really know how to respond to that. "...I'm sorry."

"Why? You didn't kill them." Siesta flicked her cigarette butt down into the marshes. "I don't think I need to tell you how much that weighs on me."

"No," Louise agreed solemnly. "You don't."

"I don't want you to be twenty-five, Louise."

"I don't particularly want to be twenty-five either."

Siesta turned around, glaring. "Really? Could have freaking fooled me."

Louise's breath hitched in her throat. She'd really done a number on Siesta's face, and a twinge of guilt surfaced at the sight of it. Siesta's nose had been bleeding earlier, and to remedy the situation she seemed to have stuffed two rolled up tissues in her nostrils that were slowly staining red. Her left eye was blackening, and the eyelids themselves were slowly swelling up.

"I... I was being stupid," Louise admitted quietly, rubbing at the forming bruises on her stomach. "I shouldn't have done that, but - it was just something simple! I didn't know all of that was going to happen, how could I have?"

"Shit happens."

Louise stared. "Is that a saying around here?"

Siesta shrugged, facing the marshes once again. "I guess it could apply anywhere."

Louise moved up on the railing. "Shit happens..."

Snorting, Siesta glanced down at the pink-haired girl. "What would your mother think of you talking like that anyway? Swearing isn't really you."

"I don't particularly care anymore," Louise grumbled. "What's the point in manners? It doesn't mean anything around here." She gave Siesta a wry glance. "Either way, I think I'd rather deal with another pseudogiant than my irate mother."

"You know, I think you've changed more than you realize," Siesta pointed out.

Louise shook her head. "No, I realize exactly how much I've changed." She sighed. "What happened with the controller... I'm still trying to wrap my head around it."

"So am I."

Louise looked up. "Haven't you fought them before?"

Siesta shook her head. "No. I ran like a pussy from one before, though."

"I can't particularly blame you for that."

"Most of what I know about them is what I've heard from other stalkers." Siesta explained. "They can make you see things that aren't there, and they can make things that are there look like something else."

"That's what it did to us then?"

Siesta nodded. "I think so. The most popular story about controllers is about a stalker who went underground with his friends. There was a controller there, and it made him think he was surrounded by zombies instead, so he killed them all."

Louise snorted. "Who even tells these stories? Did that man go back to his camp and explain to everybody that he just killed his group because he thought they were zombies?"

"Hell if I know," Siesta laughed. "There are crazier stories going around."

"I believe it. What do you think is the craziest?"

"Maybe the one about the two mages who dropped into the middle of the Zone from a different world."

Louise laughed, shaking her head. "Don't tell me that's actually going around."

"No," Siesta laughed too. "I don't think so." She prodded around her eye, hissing. "Shit, Louise. Maybe I shouldn't have taught you how to throw a punch."

Frowning, Louise studied her feet. "I'm sorry about that."

"Don't be. Wasn't your fault," Siesta said. "Just be thankful I got the worst of it instead."

Louise scoffed. "You wouldn't think so if I pulled my shirt up."

"Then pull it up."

"No, you cretin!" Louise hissed. "What if somebody sees?"

Siesta laughed. "Good point. Somebody might have something to say if they see you showing me your chest."

Louise's face turned a bright shade of scarlet. "I w-w-wouldn't pull it up that far!"

"You're no fun," Siesta snorted.

Louise sighed and rolled her eyes. "Come on. Let's go back inside. Kirche wants to get drunk."

Siesta grinned. "Well I can't say no to that."

* * *

 _A/N: Some of you may be wondering, where the hell have you been with this update? I've been busy, it seems. Editing mostly. I've gone back through the entire story and made edits in an attempt to improve overall quality. Now, for those of you who have been here from the beginning, there's no real need to go back and read everything again. Nothing pertinent to the plot has been changed. Just some tweaks in prose and dialogue to make it flow a little better. This is, after all, me trying to improve my writing skills._

 _And I've also been working on my other works. A non-crossover FoZ fic, and some original stuff._

 _Anyway, until next time._


	24. The Life of a Stalker XIII

_The Life of a Stalker XIII_

 _Army Warehouses_

 _12:22_

Montmorency had led Grouse a little further away from the fire than she had initially planned. Fearing eavesdroppers, they stood underneath the shade of the loading platform's canopy.

Grouse leaned against a rusty steel support. "So what do you want?" He asked brusquely, getting down to business.

Sharing a glance with Tabitha, Montmorency supposed that she might as well do the same and skip any pleasantries. "I've heard that you've just come back through the barrier."

"I did yesterday, yeah," Grouse said. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as Montmorency spoke.

"Well," Montmorency continued. "I'm looking for a stalker who went through there."

"Who?"

"Her name is Siesta," Montmorency answered. If Grouse looked suspicious before, it was nothing compared to how he looked now. Montmorency easily caught his look, and hope blossomed. "Do... do you know where she is?"

Grouse shrugged. "That depends."

"Depends?" Montmorency echoed, confused. "Depends on what?"

"Why are you looking for her?"

Montmorency froze. How was she going to explain the entire situation to this man? She'd look completely insane, and Tabitha wasn't coming up with any ideas either. "It's... well, I don't really know how to say it," she said sheepishly. "It's sort of complicated."

Grouse crossed his arms, looking guarded. "Siesta is a friend of mine. If you're out for blood I'm not telling you anything."

Montmorency balked, waving her arms in front of herself. "No, no! I don't want to kill her! God, I just want to talk to her!"

"About what?"

"Like I said." Montmorency massaged her forehead. "It's complicated."

"Uh huh." Grouse glanced around, being sure nobody had neared. He leaned in close to the two girls, and they both stiffened. "Does the word Halkeginia mean anything to you two?"

Montmorency and Tabitha both recoiled like they'd been slapped. The blonde stood completely shocked, and even Tabitha couldn't keep it off her face. Leaning away, Grouse nodded to himself.

But Montmorency leaned right back in, hissing. "How do you know about that?"

"Siesta told me about it," Grouse answered, unaffected. "Are you the same way? You came through a green portal?"

"Yes." Montmorency looked baffled. "She told you, and you believed her?"

Grouse looked away. "Well, she had some pretty undeniable proof."

Montmorency deflated. Undeniable proof? She could only wonder at what that could be. Skipping that, she moved on to the matter at hand. "To answer your earlier question, we want to find Siesta because she's like us. She might have answers for our questions."

Grouse played at his chin. "That makes sense." He looked between the two girls. "I guess. So here's what's up."

Smiling, Montmorency was elated. She was finally going to find Siesta.

"The last time I saw Siesta she was in a region called Zaton," Grouse continued. "It's a marshland mostly, where the

Zaton River used to run through. She's been hanging around a camp called the Skadovsk; it's a grounded cargo ship."

Taking in the information, Montmorency nodded. "When was the last time you saw her?"

"The other day."

It was recent then, and in Montmorency's mind, that was very good. "So how do we get to Zaton?"

"Well you gotta go into the Red Forest," Grouse explained. "You've probably heard of it already."

Montmorency winced. "I've... heard a few things."

"It's a freaking weird place," Grouse went on. "It's not as bad as it used to be now that the Monolith's out of there, but it's still creepy as hell, and dangerous. Stalkers don't get lost in that forest just because they get turned around."

Montmorency took in the advice. "...Oh."

"Just respect the forest and it won't mess with you," Grouse said. "Now, as for getting into Zaton... you could hire a guide I guess."

"They're hideously expensive," Montmorency pointed out.

"Most are, yeah."

"Could I hire you as one?"

Grouse snorted. "No way. I just left the place, I'm not going back. I managed to get enough cash together. I'm getting out of the Zone while I have the chance."

While Montmorency couldn't blame the man for that, it was still disheartening. "I see." She looked to Tabitha, who remained ever silent.

"I can still help you out," Grouse said. "Have you got a PDA?"

The blonde's attention was caught, and she frowned. "I don't. I'm not really good with those sorts of things."

Realizing his error, Grouse chuckled. "No, of course you wouldn't be." He pulled out his own PDA. "The route's already on it. A lot of walking, but nothing too hard."

"Wait," Montmorency began, confused. "Are you going to give that thing to me?"

Grouse nodded. "Yeah."

"Seriously?"

"Well I don't really need it anymore," Grouse pointed out. He gestured with the handheld computer. "I might as well hand it off to somebody who does."

Montmorency tentatively took the slim device in her hands. "How does this work?"

"Here, I'll show you."

* * *

 _Zaton_

 _07:21_

Louise awoke the next morning in the throes of an agonizing hangover. Her head pounded like a drum, and her mouth was bone dry. She cracked her sleep-crusted eyes open, taking in the blurred shapes that were the rest of the room.

There was no way to tell the time. The single window in the room had been covered by a thick section of hull, welded in place, so the only light came in through the curtains from sparsely lit hallway outside. It could have been noon for all Louise knew.

And right now, she didn't care.

Her head still felt muddled. The dizziness from the previous night's drunkenness had yet to fade, although Louise noted that it didn't feel quite so pleasant.

So, Louise made her decision. Back to sleep it was.

Feeling precariously close to the edge of the bunk, Louise opted to roll over and face the wall. However, she encountered a frightening issue along the way.

Louise's face came against something very soft, and very warm.

Her eyes shot open. Louise craned her head back, and took in the visage that was Siesta's sleeping face.

A feeling of horror overtook Louise as she wondered what happened for Siesta to end up in her bed. Had last night really been that crazy? Most of it was just a blur. Louise tried to remember, but came up with exactly what she didn't want to remember.

The controller.

Drinking to forget that event seemed to have failed, but Louise hadn't had much faith in that anyway. Either way, that wasn't the issue right now. Louise looked around desperately, searching for anything to jog her memory. She only found something that stepped her horror up to a new level.

She was in Siesta's bed.

Asleep, Siesta murmured incoherently. Louise felt an arm surround her waist underneath the covers, and she was pulled in closer. Siesta seemed to purr happily at the physical contact, but Louise wasn't having any of it. The pink-haired girl squirmed violently, prying herself away.

The movement roused the former maid. Her eyes split open, only for them to go wide a second later. Louise rolled away, forgetting that there was no more bed to roll onto. She fell loudly to the floor, crying out in surprise.

On the floor, Louise stared upward in a daze. Her vision was soon filled with Siesta's face peeking over the bed.

"What the heck were you doing in my bed?" Siesta hissed, confused.

Louise felt her face growing warm. "W-well I don't know! I was going to ask you something like that!"

Siesta groaned, and settled back in her bed. "Holy freaking hangover..."

Louise rose to a sit, and looking around, she noticed something was missing, or rather, someone. "Where's Kirche?"

Siesta looked. "Oh shit, where is Kirche?"

"Maybe she already got up?" Louise suggested, hefting herself to her feet. She intended to return to her own bunk, but she ran into another problem. She sighed. "I found Kirche."

"Where is she?"

"In my bunk."

Siesta snorted, rolling over to face the wall. She drew the covers taught up to her neck. How they hadn't woken Kirche up was beyond her.

"Well what am I supposed to do now?" Louise went on. "Sleep on the floor?"

"Kirche does, doesn't she?" Siesta pointed out.

Louise placed her hands on her hips, staring down at the back of Siesta's head. "I'm too hung over for that."

Siesta just grunted. Louise sighed.

"What?" Siesta mumbled. "Do you want me to let you back in? Fine." She shuffled closer to the wall.

Louise pressed her lips into a thin line.

Siesta looked over her shoulder. "Or not?" She groaned, facing the wall again and burying her head deeper in the pillow. "What time is it?"

Reluctant, Louise moved over to the desk and picked up one of two watches. "It's 7:24."

"Then go do something useful."

Louise huffed. "Like what?"

"You need a new rifle," Siesta said tiredly. "Go and get one."

Feeling that Siesta's point was fair, Louise decided to go and do just that. She fully planned on visiting the bar first, however, to satisfy her dried out mouth. Louise found her pants and boots quickly, and her holstered pistol and its accompanying magazines came next. Checking her coat, Louise found that it was still a little damp. She frowned. Perhaps she should have left it in the sun to dry.

Forgetting the coat, Louise scooped up the webbing that held all of her Kalashnikov magazines, and moved on to Siesta's backpack. "How much money can we spare?" Louise asked to Siesta, loosely draping her webbing over her shoulder.

Siesta's response was an incoherent grunt.

Louise rolled her eyes. "I suppose we can spare a lot then."

At the sound of that, Siesta flapped an arm in protest. "...Fifteen-thousand," she muttered.

Fifteen-thousand rubles it was then. Louise wouldn't get anything decent from Owl for that much, but maybe she could pay a visit to Cardan to see what he had lying around. Louise dug into Siesta's backpack, her fingers searching for the edge of the false bottom. They all kept a minor amount of money on their persons, but the bulk of what they earned was kept in the bottom of Siesta's backpack.

Louise counted off ten-thousand rubles and pocketed the bills, and with that done, she left the room.

There was nobody in the bar when Louise strolled in, and touching off from the stairs a muffled clap of thunder resonated from outside. Louise paused, watching the lights flicker.

Beard was thankfully behind the bar, looking bored. "What's up?" He greeted.

"Just a bottle of water," Louise requested. Beard nodded, and retreated into the back.

Metal groaned as the door swung open. Louise looked over her shoulder, paying more attention to the outside than the two men coming in. She could see the reeds swaying in heavy wind. There was a flash, and seconds later, thunder.

"Man, we didn't even get ten feet away from the ship," Louise heard one stalker lament. She turned back to the bar, awaiting Beard's return. How hard was it to get a bottle of water?

"Yeah, just our luck."

Louise was still waiting impatiently when she noticed the pair of footsteps halt just behind and to the left. She felt like she was being stared at, and looking over her shoulder, she found that she was.

One stalker was recognizable enough; Louise had seen plenty of Petruha around, although she hadn't had much in the way of conversation with the man. The other stalker, however, was a new face. Not many stalkers ventured into Zaton, so over the course of time Louise was able to recognize most people around, even if she didn't know their names.

But Louise could walk up to almost anybody and they'd know exactly who she was and who she hung around with. She supposed her distinctive appearance lent to that.

Louise started feeling a little awkward. "You're new around here," she said to the unnamed man.

The stalker seemed to break out of something. "Oh, uh, yeah. I am. I'm Awl."

"Louise." Her gaze flicked over to Petruha. "Is that an emission, or just bad weather?"

Petruha looked unenthusiastic. "It's an emission."

Louise nodded, and Beard returned just in time with her water. As she paid for it, Louise wondered if he had somehow gotten lost along the way. She left without another word to anybody.

Awl stared after her. "Who the heck was that?"

Petruha eyed Awl like he was remarkably dumb. "She just told you, didn't she? That's Louise."

"But look at her freaking hair, and her eyes!" Awl said, gesturing towards the stairs where Louise had disappeared. "Didn't you see that shit? That's not natural man."

"Have you ever heard of hair dye?" Petruha asked dryly.

"What about her eyes then?"

"Colored contacts."

Awl scoffed. "Yeah, sure, in the middle of the Zone? No way."

"There's a lot of guesses going around about that girl," Beard spoke up, leaning against the bar. "Nobody's really sure."

"Has anybody actually tried asking her?" Awl questioned.

"They did," Beard nodded. "Apparently she's said that her hair and eyes are completely natural."

Awl shook his head. "What the hell."

"She's a weird one," Petruha concurred. "Oh. You'll never guess who else is hanging around here."

* * *

Cardan didn't seem to be doing much of anything when Louise walked into the workshop, unless he counted sitting around smoking cigarettes with a half empty bottle of vodka nearby as doing something.

But he did snort at Louise's arrival. "What happened to your face?" Cardan asked, pointing. "Get in a fight?"

Louise self-consciously rubbed at her jaw. "Something like that, yes."

"So what's up?"

"I need a new rifle," Louise answered.

Cardan stared. "What happened to your Kalash?"

"I misplaced it."

It wasn't really Cardan's place to chastise the girl, so he stood with only a light shake of his head. He let his burning cigarette sit in the ashtray. "I don't have much," Cardan pointed out, arching his back in a stretch.

Louise had already noticed the meager collection of weaponry in the room. "I see."

Cardan sauntered over to another bench in the room, scratching his head. "I've got two SKS rifles, a Chinese and a Yugo, a handful of 91/30's, one 91/59, and a Swedish Mauser." He looked over his shoulder towards the pink-haired girl. "You don't seem too excited about those."

Frowning, Louise wasn't. She could settle on either of the SKS carbines, she supposed. She already knew how unwieldy a full-length Mosin rifle was in her hands, and she was wary of the recoil on the short barreled 91/59. She didn't know what to make of the Swedish Mauser rifle, only that it was an old bolt-action. Louise set her webbing down. "That's really all you have?"

"Well that's all of the cheap stuff. I've still got one of these." Cardan reached down beside the bench and came up with a far more modern carbine.

"Isn't that...?"

Cardan nodded. "Yeah, it's one of the rifles you and Siesta brought in from the underground. I sold the other one, but nobody's claimed this one yet. I was thinking of selling it off to Owl." He removed the magazine and checked the chamber before handing the carbine off to Louise.

Carbine in hand, Louise felt that it was quite light as she pointed it towards the wall. She wondered, was the weapon actually really light, or was she just getting stronger? Louise turned the weapon over in her hands, studying it. "What are these called?"

"Lots of different things," Cardan said. "The way that one's configured, I guess you could call it an M4A1."

The M4A1 seemed solid enough. "What does it shoot?" Louise asked.

"Five-five-six," Cardan answered. "NATO stuff. It's a good cartridge. Light recoil, shoots pretty flat."

Louise wrinkled her nose. "But none of my ammo would be any good."

Cardan shrugged. "I haven't got anything in five-four-five. You might get a halfway decent deal from Owl on ammo if you trade in all of your old stuff."

"How much?" Louise asked, gesturing with the carbine.

Cardan thought for a moment. "Since it's you, I could go twelve-thousand."

Louise narrowed her eyes. "I specifically remember you only giving us seven-thousand each for these."

"Well I gotta make money somehow, don't I?" Cardan laughed, grinning. "Just think of it as paying just five-thousand for a decent rifle. Owl would charge you out the ass for one of these."

Louise didn't doubt that for a second. She rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless. "Fine, fine. Twelve-thousand then."

* * *

Siesta sat on the edge of her bunk, feeling the brunt of her hangover. Yawning loudly and licking her lips, she didn't feel any enthusiasm to begin her day. Siesta perked up when Louise swept in through the curtain, flicking on the light on her way to the desk. Siesta shielded her eyes. "It burns, Louise. The light burns."

"Oh stop whining," Louise chided. She set her webbing and several boxes of ammunition down on the desk. "You're a grown woman."

"Yeah, maybe on the outside." Siesta dropped her hand, and took notice of Louise's new carbine. "Hey, where'd you get that?"

"Cardan," Louise answered, sitting behind the desk.

"How much was it?" Siesta asked, stretching.

"Twelve."

Siesta stood, and stretched some more. "You know, I had the weirdest dream about us last night."

Louise had already started snapping rounds into a magazine. She looked up. "Did you?" The thought of what Siesta was capable of dreaming about them honestly frightened Louise a little.

"Yeah." Siesta moved across the room. "Where the heck are my pants?" She found them on the floor next to the shelf. "Alright, so this dream I had. We were on the Skadovsk, right? Except that the Skadovsk was a windship. And we were pirates."

Louise had to stop what she was doing. She fixed Siesta with a stare. "...What?"

"I know, right?" Siesta said. "Want anything brought up for breakfast?"

"Sure."

"Anything in particular?" Siesta asked.

"Not really." Louise shrugged. "Whatever you're having I suppose. What about Kirche?"

From the top bunk, they heard Kirche's tired voice ring out. "I want breakfast tooooo."

* * *

 _The Red Forest_

 _13:35_

"Grouse was right about this place," Montmorency observed quietly. "It is creepy."

Tabitha nodded in firm agreement.

The Red Forest was an eerie place, known and feared by all across the Zone. Despite its name, there was nary a speck of red to be seen. Montmorency had heard that the forest had once been red, after the 1986 disaster had thrown out radioactive fallout, killing the regions pine forests.

Those trees were gone, she knew. Bulldozed and buried years ago. Montmorency couldn't imagine such an undertaking; uprooting an entire forest and then planting over the entire thing.

To her, it almost seemed pointless. It wasn't like anybody lived here.

Anybody who cared, at least.

Montmorency was thankful that the path through the forest was apparently much easier than it had been only a few months ago. In those days the Monolith's troops had been deployed here, making any trek into the forest a deadly affair. They were long gone, taken with the famed brain scorcher, only to be replaced by something Montmorency considered to be just as bad.

Bandits.

The two girls hadn't encountered any of the Zone's less than reputable types thus far, but the Red Forest seemed to have its fair share of wild mutants roaming about to keep them on their toes. During their hours of walking along the twisting route outlined on Grouse's PDA, Montmorency and Tabitha theorized that they had put down enough boars to feed all of Rostok for a week.

Montmorency fumbled at the handheld computer, trying to darken the screen. Muttering her distaste for technology, she found some success and slid the device into a coat pocket. Their current route was a narrow trail, rolling over uneven ground and winding between tall pines. Montmorency had found a sort of startling normality about the forest early on in the walk, an illusion that was easily broken.

It was well known that some of the strangest and worst anomalies manifested in the Red Forest, and Montmorency could only pray she and Tabitha wouldn't stumble headfirst into one. The trees themselves were a strange sight as well. Most were normal, but every now and then Montmorency would catch sight of a bizarre growth. Some trees grew horizontal, rather than vertical, twisting around in strange patterns, and sometimes even encircling surrounding pines. Other trees were absolutely massive. Montmorency had seen one that she swore was big enough to live in if somebody took the trouble to carve the inside out.

The path led them back to the main road.

"Oh thank God," Montmorency breathed. "I thought we would be in there forever."

"Look." Tabitha pointed to the rear, and Montmorency saw it too.

It was kind of hard not to see the gaping crater in the middle of the road.

Montmorency edged towards it tentatively, amazed and frightened at the same time. The asphalt simply ended a few feet ahead, and the gigantic hole was easily large enough to fit a small house inside. As Montmorency leaned closer to peer down a sharp ringing hit her ears in full force, sending her stumbling back. "Founder above..." She groaned, clutching at her now throbbing head.

"What is it?" Tabitha asked, concerned.

Montmorency barred Tabitha from coming any closer as she stepped back. "Don't go near. It hurts."

"It hurts?"

"I just got myself a headache from it," Montmorency said. "I wonder what could have made something like this."

"We should go," Tabitha urged.

Montmorency thought she could hear an edge of apprehension in Tabitha's perpetually monotone voice. "Yes, we should," she agreed. "There's an intersection ahead. We have to go left."

The road was long and overgrown, curving gently to the right. Montmorency let her attention drift as they walked along, willing the pain in her head away. She didn't know what had happened to her, but she had a feeling it wasn't anything good.

They continued on in silence, like they'd been doing for most of the walk.

A four-way intersection came into view ahead, the same Montmorency had seen on the PDA's map. It would be nice if this area meant that their walk was coming to a close, but unfortunately, Zaton was still a ways off yet.

But before Montmorency could contemplate how blistered her feet were going to be by the day's end, she saw something that knotted her stomach.

Four armed figures strolled into the intersection ahead.

So Montmorency and Tabitha did the sensible thing. They dove frantically into the thick brush.

"Did they see us?" Montmorency hissed, panicked.

Tabitha peered around a tree. "Don't think so."

The two girls remained silent in the bushes and tall grass. The four men looked enough like bandits to them with their long black coats, balaclavas, and seemingly poor equipment. Montmorency picked out two shotguns, a pistol, and a small automatic between them.

Whether the men were there to shake down stalkers or to open fire on anything that moved, neither of the girls intended to find out.

"Silence spell," Tabitha suggested.

"Silence spell?" Montmorency echoed.

Tabitha nodded. "Quiet our movement."

That sounded like a solid idea to Montmorency. She brandished her wand.

In the intersection, the four bandits simply opted to loiter about. One bandit wielding an aged Colt pistol lit a cigarette. "Man," he began, inhaling. "Nobody's gonna come by here. No one ever does."

"Somebody will," another bandit assured, his break-action shotgun hanging in one hand. "I'm pretty sure this is the way all those freakin' stalkers use to get in and out of Zaton. Somebody's gonna show up."

Another bandit checked his MP5, making sure the magazine was latched properly. "Dude we're hours from Zaton," he said nervously. "This place creeps me out."

The bandit with the break-action turned to him. "We'll just blast somebody and get the hell out of here. We need better gear. All those stalkers run around with their Kalashes while we're stuck with this shit."

The pistol-wielding bandit scanned the area, and subsequently readied his pistol. "Hey!" He barked, spitting out his cigarette. He leveled his pistol towards a tree. "Who's there?"

All of the bandits snapped to attention. "Did you see something?" The bandit with the double-barrel rattled quickly, being sure that both hammers were fully cocked.

"Man, I think so," The bandit with the pistol replied, priming the 1911's single-action hammer. "Shit. I think it was a person."

The double-barrel was brought up. "Hey! Who's out there?" The bandit shouted. "Come out now and we won't fill your ass full of holes!"

They were met with silence.

"Fuck this," the bandit with the MP5 said. "Damn Red Forest. Freaking hate this shit."

The double-barrel bandit pointed to the only bandit yet to speak. "Leonid, stay here and watch the road."

Leonid nodded, checking his pump-action's chamber.

"Come on," the bandit continued, motioning to everybody else. "Let's check it out."

The bandits, while apprehensive, did so. The three masked men swept through the trees.

"It was over there," the bandit with the pistol pointed. "I swear I saw somebody looking out around that tree."

As the bandits approached the specified pine, the man with the MP5 held back out of sheer nervousness. He made doubly sure that the submachine gun was ready for fully-automatic fire. The two remaining bandits came up on the tree, weapons ready.

There was nobody there.

The bandit with the break-action let his weapon droop. He turned to his comrade, unimpressed. "Jumping at ghosts man. Come on."

The man with the pistol was baffled. "What the shit. Man, I swear I saw somebody."

"The forest is playing tricks on you."

"Whatever." The bandit de-cocked the 1911. "Let's just get back to the road."

The two men turned away, only to freeze when they heard lightest rustling of branches. They whirled back around, coming face-to-face with the business end of Tabitha's staff.

The bandit with the MP5 could only watch in horror as two heads rolled from their shoulders.

Then, he saw Tabitha, and she saw him. Eyes widening ever so slightly, Tabitha ducked behind the trunk of the thick pine as the MP5 came up.

"Mother fucker!" The bandit roared, jamming down on the trigger. The nine-millimeter slugs raked across the tree, not even coming close to making it all the way through. His magazine ran dry in only a sparse few seconds.

As he moved to pull the empty magazine away, the bandit hadn't expected Montmorency to pop up from behind a thorny bush to his side. He took in the muzzle end of the SKS.

Montmorency wasted little time, frantically mashing down on the trigger. The SKS jumped, and the bandit fell back with four holes offering ventilation through his stomach. Montmorency stared at what she'd done for only a split-second. From the road, the barrel of a pump-action shotgun swung in her direction.

Diving away in desperation, Montmorency thought she could almost feel the hail of buckshot roar overhead. She crawled, hoping beyond hope to come across something she could hide behind. Another shell of buckshot tore up the ground only feet from her face. She cried out as the dirt rained back down.

There was another shot, and Montmorency could easily tell it wasn't meant for her. That one had been for Tabitha.

Montmorency found a rock between two skinny birch trees, barely big enough to hide her huddled form. Another shot rang out, flying through brush and branches. Some twigs fell to the ground near her feet.

There was a great whoosh, followed by the sound of dirt being thrown into the air. Another one of Tabitha's spells. Two more shots in quick succession, then a pause. It wasn't hard for Montmorency to figure out why.

The bandit was reloading.

Montmorency glanced over, and thankfully spied Tabitha's head of hair through the trees. "Tabitha!" She called. "He's reloading!" Tabitha moved, and disappeared from Montmorency's vision.

It was a novel time to attack, but as Montmorency peeked up from her cover she realized that there still remained a problem. She hadn't a sweet clue where the bandit was now. She raised her rifle with shaking hands, hoping for any signs of movement.

And the movement came. Left to her point of aim, Montmorency saw the bandit lean out from around a tree. She fired three rounds, too rattled and scared to even be sure of her aim. The shots missed their target, but did have the effect of sending the bandit back into cover.

Montmorency took this moment to try and remember how many more times the SKS would fire before it needed to be reloaded. It had to be soon, and she felt that when that time came she was absolutely screwed. With her arms shaking as they were, Montmorency had great doubts in her ability to fish in a loaded stripper clip.

But Montmorency came to find that she didn't have to worry about that. The air wooshed again, and she barely caught the vapor trail left behind the horizontal blade of compressed air as it rocketed across the road.

The tree shuddered as the blade sliced through. The upper half of a torso fell one way, and the rest fell the other just seconds before the tree began to fall.

With the rushing sounds of branches and leaves, the tall pine fell across the road.

Insurmountable relief flowed through Montmorency's veins. Standing, she kept a firm grip on her rifle and stepped away from her meager cover. Her relief was sucked back in, however, when Montmorency heard the gurgling sounds of somebody choking.

It was right in front of her. The bandit she'd shot. He was still alive, albeit barely.

Montmorency stared down, her rifle trained and her stomach churning. There was blood everywhere, far too much blood. The bandit didn't even pay mind to her presence. His dying gaze was directed straight up to the sky.

Tabitha sidled up next to Montmorency, staff in hand. The blonde nearly jumped out of her boots. Tabitha stared down at the dying man as well.

"What... what should I do, Tabitha?" Montmorency croaked. "Oh Founder, look at what I've done."

Tabitha's gaze was impassive, but from a look at her eyes, Montmorency could tell exactly what Tabitha wanted her to do.

Montmorency supposed that it made sense, in the most horrible way. The bandit was just lying there, suffering. If he was lucky, he'd live long enough to have a mutant feast on him alive. She thought about what these people would have done to her if the situation were reversed.

Montmorency knew she'd be put down like an animal.

Or worse.

Resigning herself to the duty of an executioner, Montmorency leveled the SKS at the bandit's face. She screwed her eyes shut, turned her head away, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

It hadn't even been thirty minutes when Montmorency had to stop. She couldn't get the fight out of her head, and with her emotional turmoil boiling over, she leaned against a nearby tree for support while warm tears streaked down her face.

Montmorency didn't know if Tabitha had stopped, and she didn't check. Eyes closed, she slumped to her knees. The SKS rattled when it hit the ground.

Hearing the footsteps, Montmorency opened her eyes to see Tabitha standing over. "I'm sorry," Montmorency said hoarsely, wiping away tears. "I just... I couldn't..."

Tabitha stepped forward and enveloped the kneeling Montmorency in a hug. Surprised, Montmorency gratefully returned the gesture. They stayed that way for a few minutes.

And then the comfort was shattered when an inhuman shriek echoed through the trees. Both girls froze for an instant, before jumping away from each other and readying respective weapons.

Montmorency's tears were all but forgotten. "What in the name of the Founder was that?" She hissed.

Like when she had faced the bandits, Tabitha would prefer the use of her staff. Despite that, she kept the Mosin ready, fearing she might be caught during the switch. "Not good."

Stomach twisting, Montmorency heartily agreed. "No. Not good."

The shriek pierced the silence again, just as inhuman as before, but it had a certain feminine quality to it. It also came from a much more discernible direction. Above their heads.

The two girls huddled underneath the shade of the evergreen, and looking up, they saw it. The creature soared above the forest canopy, gone just as fast as it had appeared. Montmorency could barely make out the shape of the thing. The only detail she could pick out were the wings, wide and feathered. The creature shrieked again, and again, its calls tapering off as it flew further away.

Silence shrouded Montmorency and Tabitha. They waited in cover for a few moments longer, hoping that whatever had flown over was well and truly gone.

"What in the world...?" Montmorency said, stepping out into the open. She turned to Tabitha. "Do you have any idea what that was?"

Tabitha was silent, relaxing her grip on the M44. She couldn't be one-hundred percent sure, but she knew it wasn't a manticore, because a manticore's wings weren't feathered, they were leathery and bat-like. It couldn't have been a griffon either, because a griffon was much larger, and their calls sounded nothing like the horrifying shrieks they had just heard. Tabitha had one idea, though. "A harpy."

If Montmorency were drinking something she would have spat it out. "A harpy? You're joking, Tabitha."

Tabitha shrugged. "Not sure. Too fast."

Montmorency swallowed. She wasn't quite sure what to do if an actual harpy were patrolling overhead. She didn't think the Zone had such creatures, but it was entirely likely it could have come from Halkeginia. Montmorency had never seen a harpy herself, like most. They were extremely rare creatures, and some people doubted that they even existed.

There were two types of stories Montmorency had heard about the harpies when she was a child. There were the tales of how they were a majestic species, who sought to live in peace in the wilds of the highest mountains. And then there were the stories of how they were vicious, violent, and cruel creatures.

Montmorency didn't know which side of the stories to believe, and from the terrible shrieks, she found herself leaning more towards the latter.

Putting that behind, Montmorency decided that they should keep moving. She brandished the PDA, and scowled at the map screen. Grouse had told her that if they were to leave early in the morning it would still likely be late into the evening by the time they reached Zaton, which was why Montmorency had opted to wait until the next morning after the emission to leave the Army Warehouses. At this rate, Montmorency had the suspicion that it was going to be after dark by the time they found Zaton.

She hoped she was wrong. Montmorency did not want to be caught in this forest after dark, when the Zone's nastiest denizens were the most active.

The two girls continued on, warier than they had ever been before.

* * *

 _Zaton_

 _19:34_

As Montmorency checked her watch, she was thankful her fears of nightfall had proven to be false. She supposed the invisible boundaries of the Red Forest had been left behind. The forest around her and Tabitha was much more alive. The eeriness had washed away, and now there were even birds, albeit they were only crows, but birds nonetheless.

The trees began to thin as the girls continued on in silence.

It was now, when Montmorency noticed something strange. Leaning against a nearby tree was a heavily pitted section of steel. "What's this all about?" She asked aloud.

Tabitha looked on. She shrugged.

Montmorency sighed. "God, I hope we're close." She meant it. By this time, Montmorency was absolutely bushed. Changing her grip on the SKS, she put the steel behind and slogged forward. She grimaced, but her wobbly steps eventually evened out. Her feet were raw with blisters.

"Tired?" Tabitha asked, following behind.

"Exhausted," Montmorency replied.

As the girls walked the pines continued to thin, until eventually there were no more trees to be had. Leaving the

oppressive woodlands felt like a blessing, like a veil of claustrophobia had been lifted.

It was just knee-high grass and withering shrubbery from here on. Ahead, Montmorency could see that they were nearing the crest of a hill.

And on the crest of that hill, they took it all in. Vast marshlands stretched out for what seemed like miles, tattooed with narrow veins of shallow water and dense rows of tall reeds.

Montmorency brandished the PDA, eyed over the map screen, and put it away. "This is it. We're in Zaton."

Tabitha didn't say anything. The marshlands themselves snaked a wide valley surrounded by steep hills. Far ahead there were massive cargo ships grounded in the mud, the only things that remained to prove that the Zaton River had ever existed. Montmorency remembered what Grouse had told her. One of those was the Skadovsk, and it was now only a question of which one.

"Tabitha," Montmorency said, gaining the blue-haired girl's attention. "Could you use Distant Vision to look around the area ahead? To see if there's anybody around?"

Tabitha nodded, and instead of switching to her staff, she accepted the wand Montmorency held out. She waved the magical instrument and chanted quietly. So long as she kept the spell up, she could look around as if she were gazing through a spyglass.

There seemed to be little more than boars and a small pack of dogs down in the marshes, but after some searching, Tabitha found something else. "Two people," she said, pointing. "Over there."

Montmorency followed the finger, and bringing up a pair of binoculars, she found them. It just looked like two stalkers artifact hunting around a massive boiler anomaly. The steam cloud plumed upward until it caught the wind and dispersed. From what Montmorency could tell them men were obviously stalkers. Bandits rarely went anomaly diving, if at all. The only way a bandit could even get their hands on a detector was to steal one from a stalker.

But Montmorency couldn't say much about that. She didn't have a detector either, but she had her excuses. A decent detector was disturbingly expensive. Most selective-fire rifles were cheaper.

Licking dry lips, Montmorency looked to her shorter companion. "Do you think we should go meet them?"

"Could be useful," Tabitha replied. "Could show us the way. Have to be careful."

With a nod, Montmorency traded her binoculars for her rifle. As she stomped down the steep incline, her aching feet and emotional troubles were almost completely forgotten.

Montmorency had only seen a boiler anomaly once before, in a swampy area at the edge of the Cordon. It was small, about the size of a compact sedan. This boiler, however, was absolutely massive. She estimated it was about half the size of the Alviss Dining Hall in the Academy.

Rounding the perimeter, the girls saw one of the two stalkers come into view. It seemed that while one stalker was in the thick of it, one was standing guard.

The two girls found that the only way to get over to the boiler was through ankle deep water. Unenthusiastic, Montmorency attempted to leap most of the way, but ended up splashing in the water.

Petruha had seen the two girls coming from a mile off. He stared on flatly as Montmorency groused aloud at her feet being soaked. As they neared he kept the grip on his rifle tight. "Hey. What's up?" He greeted once they were in speaking distance.

"Um, hello," Montmorency said awkwardly. "Would you happen to know where the Skadovsk is?"

Petruha stared. "Yeah, sure. It's –"

"Hey! Monty!"

Petruha looked over his shoulder, while Montmorency and Tabitha glanced past the stalker to see a man coming down from the boiler. He held an arm up in greeting, and donned a gas mask. His face covered and his voice muffled, Montmorency had no idea who this person was.

"You know her?" Petruha asked as the other stalker neared.

"Yeah man."

Montmorency quirked an eyebrow. "You do know me?"

The stalker nodded, peeling off his mask. Now, Montmorency immediately recognized the man. It was Awl.

"Awl?" Montmorency said, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

Awl shrugged, securing his gas mask on his belt. "Oh, you know. Stalking and stuff."

Montmorency snorted. "Well I've been wondering where you ran off to."

Awl spread his arms out, motioning to the world around them. "Adventure, man."

Petruha chuckled, while Montmorency gave Awl a flat look. "I'm not a man," she pointed out.

"Whatever," Awl replied, dismissive. "What are you doing here?"

"Adventure," Montmorency said, smirking. She would be lying if she said she hadn't missed the man around the rookie village. Drifter and Tolik were good company, but Awl was always the funny one.

Awl pointed to Tabitha. "So, uh, friend of yours?"

"Oh! Yes," Montmorency said, gesturing to Tabitha. "This is Tabitha."

Awl stared. "Did she, um..."

Montmorency nodded, catching on. "Yes. The same way I did."

"Really?"

"Really."

"That's messed up," Awl said.

Montmorency sighed. "I know."

Petruha looked between the two. "What's messed up? What are you talking about?"

Awl waved him off. "Nah, it's nothing." He turned back to Montmorency. "Hey we're about to head back to the Skadovsk, so why don't you come with us? Beats sitting around in the marshes getting shot at."

Montmorency nodded. "That sounds good."

"Cool. Let's go."

Petruha still glanced about curiously as he followed behind Awl. "Seriously man, what were you talking about?"

Awl laughed. "Chill, bro."

The group left the boiler behind. The following slog through the muck-ridden marshes was agonizing in its own way, but Montmorency didn't think much of it. Her mind was in other places.

She sincerely hoped that Siesta was around the Skadovsk. It would mean an end to this leg of their journey if she hadn't disappeared during the last few days.

The shape of the Skadovsk neared. Montmorency and Tabitha could see stalkers patrolling the deck, and dark smoke curled lazily from the rusted smokestack.

They reached the ship in due time, and entered through the hull under the watchful eye of a stalker cradling an assault rifle and puffing on a cigarette. Awl led them to the door.

He checked his watch. "It's a little late in the evening, so the place is probably gonna be a little crowded," Awl warned as he worked the door's lever.

Awl was right. The Skadovsk's lowest level was packed with stalkers. The din of jovial chatter filled the room, there was somebody playing a harmonica in one corner amongst a crowd, and the blue-grey haze of cigarette smoke hugged at the ceiling.

Montmorency already noticed a few stares coming their way as she stepped inside, but she shrugged them off easily enough.

Awl and Petruha led the two girls to an empty table against the wall. Tabitha and Montmorency sat on one side, while Awl sat on the other. Petruha announced he was going to the bar to get a drink.

Montmorency's feet experienced a course of blissful relief. She sighed happily.

"So how are things on the other side of the barrier?" Awl asked.

"Probably how you'd expect them to be," Montmorency replied, pursing her lips in a moment of thought. "Nothing has changed much, really. How are things here?"

Petruha opted to speak up, returning from the bar. "They're freaking shit."

Montmorency raised her brow. "Oh?"

"Yeah," Awl grunted. "The damn bandits have got this place turned into a warzone. There's a pretty big firefight every other day."

Montmorency frowned. "That's certainly comforting," she muttered.

"No kidding." Awl crossed his arms. "I should have stayed in the Cordon."

Petruha nodded his agreement, and before Montmorency could get out what she was about to say, somebody approached the table. She looked up, and found – much to her surprise – another woman.

Another woman with a rather beat-up face. Her eye was blackened, and her nose was bruised.

Petruha was the first to speak. "Shit, what the heck happened to you? Lose a fight with a dump truck or something?"

The woman snorted. "Something like that, yeah." Her gaze turned to Montmorency and Tabitha. She stared at the both evenly for only a moment, before going back to Petruha. "I heard you were looking for some battery artifacts."

Petruha nodded. "Beard's got a few contracts out on some."

"Some electrical anomalies popped up on the road to the ranger station after the last emission," the woman pointed out. "It might be worth checking out."

"Cool, thanks. Have any luck with them?"

The woman grunted in distaste. "Well I was out there earlier today and I managed to get a shitload of sparklers out of it. No batteries yet."

Petruha laughed, and the woman bade him a quick farewell. She disappeared into the crowd of stalkers, heading towards the bar.

All the while, Montmorency and Tabitha couldn't help but stare. They shared a quick glance, before Montmorency turned on the two men. "Who was that?" The blonde rattled out.

Awl looked surprised. "Oh, her? That's just Siesta." Then he remembered something. "Hey, weren't you interested in finding..." He trailed, watching as Montmorency shot up from her chair and practically sprinted across the bar. "...Her?"

Tabitha remained for a few moments longer, looking between the two men and feeling a little awkward. Without a word, she got up and followed after Montmorency.

Awl looked to Petruha, who shrugged. "Strange chicks, huh?" He remarked.

Montmorency caught up with Siesta, who had already reached the bar. Approaching from behind, Montmorency reached out and touched Siesta's arm. She had been about to offer a greeting when Siesta swiftly whirled around, grabbed her by the wrist, and twisted her arm around behind her back.

"Ow ow ow!" Montmorency cried in protest. "Hey! Let go!"

Siesta did, thankfully. When Montmorency turned around, she found herself on the receiving end of a flat stare. "Hasn't anybody ever told you not to sneak up on people?" Siesta asked, crossing her arms. "You could get shot."

Montmorency rubbed at her wrist as Tabitha stepped up to her side. She glanced at the blue-haired Gallian, before turning her sights back to the task at hand. "You... you're Siesta, right?"

Siesta shrugged. "Yeah. Why?"

Her breath hitching, Montmorency felt like leaping forward and hugging the other girl. The remaining pain in her arm deterred her from doing so. "It's just that... well, um, I've been looking for you."

"Really?" Siesta snorted. "For what? A girl's night out?"

Montmorency frowned, waving a hand. "No, no, not for anything like that." She had heard what Siesta was like as a person, and suspected this might only be the beginning. "It's just... I've heard a lot about you, and –"

Siesta cut her off, laughing. Beard arrived with a glass and placed it down on the bar top. Siesta slapped a few bills down, and eagerly took the drink. "You've heard a lot about me? Jeez, don't tell me I've got a fan club or something." She turned to Beard. "Hey, Beard. Do I have a fan club?"

Beard had already turned away to another task. "You don't wanna know."

Siesta's laughter fell short, and her eyes narrowed. "Wait, what?"

"Forget about that," Montmorency said impatiently, gaining a raised eyebrow from Siesta. "I really need to talk to you."

"Alright, fine. What about?"

Montmorency motioned for Siesta to lean in closer. She did so, hesitantly. "I'm from Tristain too," Montmorency whispered in her ear.

Siesta reeled back, surprised. Her eyes went to Tabitha, her hair, and then her staff. Siesta sighed, rubbing at her forehead. "Jeez. I should have guessed that from the beginning," she said in Tristainian, a tired edge to her voice. "I've been really out of it today, and I've been drinking since nine."

Montmorency shared another glance with Tabitha, and then fixed Siesta with an incredulous stare. "Since nine..."

"Anyway," Siesta continued, laughing. "Isn't this interesting. I've got myself another pair of strays."

"Another pair?" Montmorency echoed.

"Yeah, come on," Siesta motioned for Montmorency and Tabitha to follow. "I'll bring you to meet the others. They'll love this."

"Others? You have others? Who?" Montmorency asked quickly, following behind.

"I'll introduce you – wait." Siesta stopped at the foot of the stairs. "I don't even know your names."

"Well, I'm Montmorency," Montmorency introduced. "And this is Tabitha."

Siesta stared intently at the two. Montmorency had started to feel uncomfortable, but suddenly Siesta broke into a wide grin and started to chuckle. Now, Montmorency felt even more uncomfortable.

"...What?" Montmorency asked, baffled.

"Oh nothing, nothing," Siesta said, the reassurance in her voice glaringly faked. "Let's go."

Feeling entirely dubious, Montmorency followed after the stalker with Tabitha close behind. Was Siesta leading her into some sort of trap? Somehow she doubted that.

Siesta led them to a doorway draped over by a curtain. The three of them stood outside. "Hey," Siesta called. "You decent in there, sweet pea?"

Feminine laughter came from within the room. "What did you just call me?"

That sent a stab through Montmorency's stomach. She recognized that voice, she was sure of it. A glance towards Tabitha spelled that the blue-haired girl was thinking the same thing.

Siesta swept through the curtain. "You'll never guess who I met today."

Montmorency and Tabitha entered after Siesta, and that's when they saw her.

Kirche.

Montmorency didn't know what to say, she couldn't even speak, or believe her eyes. Kirche was right there, sitting at a desk with a field stripped Kalashnikov in front of her. She hadn't even looked up as she ran the cleaning rod through the rifle's bore.

"Who?" Kirche asked. She looked up, and found that her question didn't need answering. Her mouth fell open, and the cleaning rod came free from her grasp. She shot up to her feet, glancing frantically between the two shocked girls. "What... but... how... you?"

Tabitha was the one to unceremoniously rush forward and trap Kirche in a tight embrace. Kirche gratefully returned the hug, while Montmorency could only stand in shock with her hand covering her mouth.

The waver in Kirche's voice certainly made it obvious she was near the point of tearing up. She looked to Siesta as Tabitha seemingly refused to let go. "Where did you find them?"

Siesta shrugged, lighting a cigarette. "Downstairs, in the bar."

"Seriously?"

"Yeap," Siesta snorted. "They were with Awl and Petruha."

Tabitha finally relented, and Montmorency moved in for her own hug. "Founder above, Kirche," she said, muffled in the taller Germanian's shoulder. "I seriously didn't think I'd ever see you again."

"I could say the same about the both of you," Kirche replied. She looked to Siesta again. "What kind of stupid luck is it that you just ran into them in the bar?"

"Oh I thrive on stupid luck," Siesta pointed out, grinning. "But really, it wasn't stupid luck. They were looking for me."

As Kirche and Montmorency separated, she gave the blonde and Tabitha weird looks. "You were looking for Siesta?"

Montmorency nodded. "Yes. We were both trying to track her down."

Siesta plopped down on the lower bunk. "Well you found me," she said unenthusiastically. "So congratulations, I guess."

Montmorency's lips tightened as she gave Siesta a stare, but Kirche quickly grabbed her attention again.

"Oh don't mind her," Kirche said, dismissive. "She's just insufferable all of the time. You get used to it."

Siesta feigned a hurt look. "What the hell, Kirche?"

Kirche ignored that, leaning her bottom on the desk. "How long have you two been here in the Zone?"

"About a month, I believe," Montmorency answered. "And Tabitha... how long has it been Tabitha?"

"Twelve days," the Gallian answered.

Kirche chuckled, unable to keep the smile from her face. "Jeez Monmon, you've been in the Zone longer than I have. What have you been doing all this time?"

"I've been in the Cordon mostly," Montmorency answered.

Siesta snorted from nearby. "Monmon? People call you that?"

Montmorency was about to open her mouth, but then she realized that this was her chance to get rid of the nickname she hated even more than Monmon. She smiled. This could be good.

"We called her that at school because she hated it," Kirche explained, smirking. She turned back to Montmorency. "Wasn't Guiche the one who started that?"

"Yes," Montmorency grumbled. "In our first year." She turned to Siesta, curious. "You don't seem particularly surprised that we know Kirche."

Siesta shrugged. It was mostly because she didn't really care. "I recognized the names when you introduced yourselves," she explained. "Kirche's mentioned you before."

"Well I certainly hadn't expected something like this today," Kirche said. "It's good that we delayed going into Yanov."

Siesta nodded almost idly in agreement.

"You delayed leaving?" Montmorency asked. "Why?"

"Too hung over this morning," Siesta answered.

Montmorency turned to Kirche. "You're hung over?"

"We were," Kirche corrected, sheepish. "We got a little liberal with the drinking last night."

Siesta snorted loudly. "Only a little? You practically downed a full bottle of vodka yourself."

"Oh like you can talk," Kirche countered. "You're still drinking. That's ridiculous."

Montmorency shook her head in disbelief. "You're the same wherever you go, Kirche."

"I just like to have fun," Kirche said. "And that's a rare thing around here."

Sighing, Montmorency nodded. "You don't have to tell me. So what have you been doing in the Zone? Have you just been here in Zaton with Siesta the entire time?"

"Well, yes I have," Kirche took notice of something over Montmorency's shoulder, and exhaled through her nose. "But Founder above, Monmon, you'll never guess who else is here."

Montmorency scrunched her face, while Tabitha eyed the Germanian curiously. "Who?" Montmorency asked. Kirche pointed past, towards the door. The blonde turned around, along with Tabitha.

If her jaw hadn't been stuck on, Montmorency was sure that right now it would have just fallen off. Now she really couldn't believe her eyes, and it seemed to be the same for the shocked figure standing in the doorway, frozen.

"Louise..."

* * *

 _A/N: Yeah, so I finally got the whole 'Zone group' together. Beware, because there will be incoming time skips. Not ginormous ones, though, and not until after the next chapter._

 _Which brings me to something else. There are two ways this story could go at this point, and I'd like some input as to how to go about it, because I'm seriously divided right now._

 _It's nothing to do with plot, though. Just structure._

 _The first, is that I simply continue on with The Life of a Stalker, and it'll get to like twenty something chapters before we get into the third act, which, in this format, is only planned to be three chapters. Long chapters, but still, just three of them._

 _Or, the next chapter could be the last chapter of The Life of a Stalker, and then we'll dive right into Act III. In this format, Act III will primarily be from Louise's point of view, with periodic flashback sections that tell the story of what happened to the group after they left Zaton. If any of you have watched the series How I Met Your Mother, think season 9. Yeah, it'll pretty much be like that. Act III will take place over a short period of time, like three days (not consecutive days though), while the flashbacks tell most of the story, with interlude chapters that show what's going on in Halkeginia. If I go this route, Act III will be much longer than three chapters._

 _So yeah, I hope to get your opinions on that. I'm hesitant to go ahead with the second idea, because I'm afraid that it might confuse some readers, and at the same time, I'm also hesitant to drag out Act II for such a long period._

 _Since this A/N is becoming horrendously long I'll end it with a pointless fun fact._

 _In an earlier version of the plot outline, the five girls were supposed to be in the outer regions right now, stalking it up in the Cordon and stuff. The story is always freaking changing. Also, and an even earlier version of the plot outline, Tabitha wasn't even supposed to be included in the Zone adventures. In fact, she wasn't even going to be in the story, other than at the end of Act I when she's at the fire with Guiche and the others. Also, Henrietta was going to be in the Zone by this point as well, but I scrapped that._

 _But don't worry about Henrietta. She'll get some screen time (...or, page time?) soon enough. So will some of the other Halkeginian characters, such as Karin, and Cattleya._


	25. The Life of a Stalker XIV

_The Life of a Stalker XIV_

 _Albion_

 _19:14_

"Ah! Mr. Alexander!"

Alexander stopped and looked over his shoulder. Despite the time of day the street was still busy, but the small group approaching him was easily picked out. They were the mages he had met on the road the other day.

Guiche was memorable enough with his eccentricities and his flowing blonde hair. Following behind was the pessimistic Malicorne, dreadfully overweight, cynical Gimli with his mint green hair, and lastly was the sweet-tempered Katie. Alexander had seen the teens around town a few times already, and Guiche and Katie didn't seem to mind talking to him.

The others, however, not so much.

Alexander could only wonder what these people wanted with him.

As Guiche neared, he spoke. "Matilda asked me to deliver a message if I happened to run into you."

Alexander furrowed his brow at the youths. "She did?" If Guiche found offense in Alexander's blatant lack of manners he didn't show it, although there were some noticeably sour expressions crossing the other's faces. Alexander didn't pay much mind to them. Matilda had already explained the social structure around here – it wasn't a hard concept to grasp – but that didn't mean Alexander had to like it.

If he annoyed these kids by not caring, he would simply continue to not care.

"Yes," Guiche answered, nodding. "She's left town for a few days, for some work. She would like you to watch after Tiffania."

That blindsided Alexander. "...Seriously?"

"Yes, indeed," Guiche said, sounding just as perplexed as Alexander. "She seemed rather hurried. What does she do for a living?"

"I..." Alexander blinked. "I have no idea, actually."

"That seems odd."

"Yeah," Alexander chuckled. "Seems like I always get mixed up with the weird ones." He thought this was more than a little odd to say the least. He hadn't known Matilda for that long, and she left what was probably the most important person in her life in his care? It was almost like she felt he was a sufficient enough force of destruction to keep Tiffania safe.

"Where are you from, Mr. Alexander?" Katie spoke up softly. "You sound rather foreign."

"So do you guys," Alexander pointed out.

"Well we're from Tristain," Gimli snorted. "So we are."

"Tristan, huh?" Alexander said. "I've heard of that."

"Oh, have you?" Gimli asked, crossing his arms. He chuckled haughtily.

Alexander passed it off. "I know a few people from there."

"Who?" Malicorne asked curiously. He scoffed. "Us?"

Alexander laughed. "No, other than you. These three girls I met once, two of them said they were students at the Tristain Academy of Magic. Do you know the place?"

Alexander watched as the four mages seemed to stiffen all at once. "We do," Guiche said slowly, narrowing his eyes.

"We were students there as well."

"Oh, really?" Alexander said. "Why did you leave?"

"Well, we're adventuring," Gimli answered, grinning.

Alexander snorted. "How's that going for you?"

"It's... interesting," Katie answered. "Certainly isn't where I thought I would be right now."

"Just wait a second," Guiche said before Alexander could say anything more to the brunette. "Those people you met from the Academy, who were they?"

Alexander shrugged, and casually listed off the names. "Uh, Kirche von Zerbst, and Louise de la Valliére." He noticed the gaping looks he was suddenly receiving, and raised an eyebrow. "...Did I say that right?"

"W-what?" Guiche sputtered. "You must be joking."

"No, uh, I'm not joking," Alexander answered. "So I'm guessing you know them?"

"You're being completely serious right now?" Guiche pressed desperately. "Louise and Kirche are actually alive?"

Alexander felt a little taken aback. "Last time I saw them, yeah."

"That's unbelievable," Katie remarked, shocked. "I never would have thought..." Gimli and Malicorne both nodded their silent agreement.

"So it was just Louise and Kirche then?" Guiche asked, hopeful. "Nobody else?"

Alexander thought the teen's sudden curiosity was a little strange, but not completely unfounded. "There was this other girl, Siesta. She was from Tristain too, but she isn't a mage."

The mages hadn't heard of anybody called Siesta before, but since she was a commoner it didn't come as a big surprise. "Where are they now?" Guiche continued. "Do you know?"

Alexander laughed. "Would you believe me if I said they were in a different world?"

The Nobles didn't look impressed, although Guiche did don an expression of deep contemplation. "No," Gimli said flatly. "Not particularly."

"So you all knew Louise?" Alexander went on. "I heard her family was pretty important."

Malicorne exhaled as if that were a gross understatement. "Yes, the Valliére family is quite important in Tristain."

Guiche nodded, breaking from his thoughts. "Very important," he agreed. "Her mother led the Manticore Corps for years, and her father was an important figure in military and court affairs as well before he went into retirement. And her eldest sister, Éléonore de la Valliére, retains an important position at the Royal Research Institute in Tristania."

"You know a lot about her then," Alexander commented.

"All Tristainian Nobles know of the Valliéres," Malicorne said.

Gimli played at his chin in thought. "You know, I think the Valliére family would be very interested to know that their youngest daughter is still alive."

"Really?" Alexander said.

Malicorne groaned. "You aren't thinking we should go back to Tristania and tell them, are you? We just got into Albion for Founder's sake."

"No," Guiche assured. "There won't be any of that. It pains me to say it, but Tristain isn't the kingdom it used to be."

Alexander thought for a moment. He didn't have any obligation to go to Tristain and inform the Valliére family that Louise was still kicking, but what else did he have to do with his life right now? He wasn't just going to run off to Tristain, though, especially now that Matilda had up and left, but he felt it was something to keep in mind. "Do you think the Valliéres would pay for that kind of information?"

Gimli laughs. "Is that all you're interested in? Money? What about the peace of mind knowing that you've done somebody a great service?"

Alexander shrugged. "Money gets you fed. Money gets you a bed at night. So I guess that money can be your best friend."

"You've certainly been around," Kate commented. "Haven't you?"

"I've been plenty of places," Alexander said, nodding. "This is one of the nicest, I think."

"This little village?" Malicorne asked.

"Yeah."

Guiche spoke up again. "We've seen men like you before, Alexander."

"You have?" Alexander asked, curious. "What exactly makes somebody a man like me?"

"Your strange weaponry, for one," Guiche pointed out. Alexander supposed that was obvious. Even though he wasn't currently toting a rifle, his pistol was still comfortably strapped to his thigh. "Not here, however, but in Tristain. People like you have been popping up out of nowhere. That sounds kind of strange, doesn't it?"

So the whole 'Zone and Halkeginia being connected' thing was a little more prevalent than Alexander had thought. He stared, before leaning in. "You want to hear about something strange?" Alexander asked, taking Guiche by surprise. "In your travels, if you ever happen to run into a giant green oval, stay the hell away from it or else you'll end up like me; stuck in a place where you really don't belong."

Without another word or time for response, Alexander turned on his heel and walked away. The mages stared after him in a brief silence.

"You honestly just let him speak to you like that?" Gimli asked.

"I did," Guiche said. He turned to the others. "What that man said earlier, about Louise and Kirche being in another world. What if that's true? What if all the monsters and strange people are coming from there? What if everybody that's disappeared are there right now?"

Katie stepped forward, placing a comforting hand on Guiche's shoulder. "Guiche, that's impossible," she said. "There's just no way..."

"But what if it's true?" Guiche cut in."

Gimli snorted. "You don't really believe in some commoner telling tall tales, do you?"

Guiche didn't respond. He looked to where he had last seen Alexander, who had now disappeared completely. If what Alexander had said was true, if he ever did run into a green oval, Guiche didn't think he would heed the strange man's advice. What if Montmorency was trapped in some crazy world?

Guiche knew that if it meant finding Montmorency, then he'd dive headfirst into the damned oval.

* * *

After a long day, Alexander felt entirely beat out as he walked into the inn he'd been calling home for the past few days. He had managed to find easy work at the local tavern, where he worked in the back washing dishes and sorting stock. It was mind-numbing work, but it paid well enough to suit his tastes.

The downstairs of the inn was a tavern as well, but it was almost completely deserted right now. A lone girl stood behind the bar, reading a book. She was young, he noted, probably about Tiffania's age. She gave him a smile in passing, and Alexander returned it with a small wave.

He hefted himself upstairs, and found the room he, Matilda, and Tiffania shared easily. Alexander pushed open the door.

The frightened squeak he heard immediately made Alexander think he had inadvertently stumbled in on Tiffania changing, but a quick look told him that wasn't the case at all. She had merely halted in the middle of the room.

However, Alexander did note that this was the first time he had ever seen her without that cloak. She wore a green one piece dress that was rather crude, but strangely enough it managed to suit her nicely. Tiffania had a slim yet shapely build, with two heaping mounds of flesh adorning her chest.

Surprisingly, the large breasts weren't the most eye-catching thing Alexander noticed on Tiffania's body. The blonde girl's ears were about six inches long each, and pointed.

Alexander closed the door awkwardly. "Should... I have knocked?"

From the absolutely terrified look on Tiffania's face, Alexander surmised that he probably should have. With a shriek, Tiffania clamped her hands down on her ears and dropped to a squat. Alexander observed the spectacle, unsure of what to do now.

"Tiff," Alexander said, using a shortened version of her name. "What's the matter with you? You're freaking out."

"You saw them..." Tiffania croaked, refusing to look up. "You saw them, didn't you?"

Alexander wondered, saw what? Her giant boobs? So what? Why was that a big deal? It wasn't like she was naked, and besides, lots of people had big boobs. "I, uh, guess so. They're, um... nice?"

Tiffania looked up, shocked. She looked like she had been about to cry. "But... you're not scared?"

"Should I be?" Alexander cocked an eyebrow. "I don't think I understand."

Tiffania slowly rose to her feet. Her hands fell away from her head. "My ears..."

Oh, the ears. That didn't do much to help Alexander's confusion. "Are pointy ears a big deal? I mean, there's like dragons and stuff flying around, so pointy ears seem a little tame to me."

"But... but..." Tiffania sputtered, flabbergasted. "You're not scared!"

"Seriously, should I be? Are you going to try and murder me or something now that I've seen your ears?" Alexander asked jokingly.

Tiffania didn't seem to get his humor. Her eyes went wide. "No! No, no! I'm not going to... I-I couldn't!" She deflated, her shoulders sagging. She padded across the room, dropped down onto the bed, and buried her face in her hands. "You're not scared... I can't believe it."

Alexander crossed his arms. "Yeah, I'm seriously confused right now."

Tiffania looked up. "I'm a half-elf." Alexander's face didn't change much, only a slight raise of his brow. Tiffania couldn't believe him right now. "People... humans are scared of elves. They hate elves."

Alexander snorted. "Come on, Tiff. No offence or anything, but you couldn't scare off a fly."

Tiffania found it in herself to laugh quietly as the rubbed at her forehead. "I was so scared you were going to run away, and tell somebody..."

Alexander flapped a hand, dismissive. "Nah, I wouldn't do that. So you're half elf then. Well that's pretty awesome. I didn't think I'd ever meet an elf."

Tiffania shook her head. "You're a strange man, Alexander."

"Yeah, I get that a lot," Alexander said nonchalantly, walking to the other end of the room. "I mean, so what? You have pointed ears then. I think they look nice on you."

Tiffania perked up. "R-really? Are you sure?"

Alexander shrugged. "Sure. So is that what you were hiding this entire time? With the cloak?"

Tiffania nodded.

"Why didn't you just wear a hat?"

"W-what? A Hat?" Tiffania sputtered. "I-I don't own a hat..."

Alexander laughed. "Well then maybe we can buy you a big floppy one then."

Tiffania smiled. "You don't have to do that."

"So," Alexander said, stretching. "Matilda's going to be gone a few days."

"I know," Tiffania answered sadly. "She told me earlier today, after you were gone. Did she tell you too?"

"No," Alexander answered. "I ran into those mages from the other day, and they told me about it. Did Matilda say why she was going? Or what she's actually doing?"

Tiffania opened her mouth, and closed it again in thought. She sighed deeply. "Matilda thinks I don't know anything... She thinks I'm so dumb..."

"What?" Alexander said in disbelief. He took a seat near the foot of the bed. "Come on, Matilda doesn't think you're stupid. She thinks the world of you."

"She thinks I don't know what she does, where all the money came from," Tiffania went on, staring at her feet. "I know what she does..."

"Well then what does she do?"

"Matilda's a thief."

Alexander stopped. He stared incredulously at Tiffania's drooping ears. "What? So she like, steals stuff?"

Tiffania nodded.

"And you know that she does," Alexander continued.

Tiffania nodded again.

"But she doesn't know that you know?"

Tiffania nodded a third time.

"And what do you think of it?"

"I think it's horrible!" Tiffania blurted, her head shooting up to look Alexander in the eyes. Seeing his raised brow, her gaze went back to her feet. "But... I could never confront her. It would break her heart for her to find out that I know what she's been doing, and... it's horrible of me to have used that money to live, I know, b-but there wasn't any other way... I would have went hungry years ago."

"So, Matilda, right now, is off stealing shit somewhere?"

Tiffania covered her mouth, eyes growing wide at the obscenity. "Alexander!"

"Sorry, sorry," Alexander apologized, waving a hand dismissively.

"But yes," Tiffania sighed. "To answer that, she is."

"Well, I hope she comes back with some good loot then," Alexander said tiredly.

"W-what?" Tiffania sputtered in disbelief. "That doesn't bother you? She says... oh." She buried her face in her hands. "I shouldn't have said all of that..."

Alexander wasn't particularly bothered at all. It wasn't any of his business how Matilda made her living. "I've done some pretty bad things too, just to survive," he pointed out.

"Oh..." Tiffania muttered.

The former SBU agent looked over the girl. "You're really stressed about it, aren't you?"

"I worry about her, all of the time," Tiffania said quietly. "It gives me stomach aches."

"I'm sure Matilda's going to fine," Alexander assured, standing. "Have you eaten supper yet?"

Tiffania shook her head. "I didn't. I'm not very hungry..."

Alexander rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, you have to be. Let's go get something to eat. I got paid today."

Tiffania perked up. "You did?" She asked, her drooping ears shooting upward.

Alexander nodded. "They've got some nice smelling things downstairs."

Tiffania stood, and with a single stride she closed the distance and wrapped her arms around Alexander in a tight hug. "Thank you," she said, in the tiniest of voices. "For not being scared of me."

While taken aback, Alexander lightly returned the girl's gesture. When Matilda returned, he'd have a talk with her, he knew. No so much about her chosen profession, but more along the lines of another hatching plan.

* * *

 _Zaton_

 _19:40_

"There you are."

Louise looked over her shoulder, finding the blonde-haired Montmorency nearby. Cradling her carbine, Louise turned back to the marshes. This wasn't her first time pulling guard detail on the Skadovsk, but she fully expected it to be her last.

"I've been looking for you," Montmorency continued, stepping closer.

"Well it seems like you've found me," Louise said.

Montmorency joined Louise at the railing. The marshes were bathed in an orange glow, courtesy of the setting sun. It was an oddly beautiful sight, looking to the south. The metal on the Shevchenko seemed to glow, and even further off the rickety watchtower on the old barge stood black against the sky. Montmorency didn't know what to say now. She hadn't even realized that her eyes had become attracted to the three scars on Louise's face.

But Louise had realized. "They're ugly, I know," she said quietly.

"No – well, I... what did this to you?"

"A bloodsucker."

Montmorency found her face morphing into a gape. "You were that close to a bloodsucker?"

Louise nodded. "Mhm."

"I haven't even seen a bloodsucker," Montmorency admitted.

"Well, most people don't," Louise pointed out. "They're invisible, you see."

Montmorency snorted. "Are you trying to be cute?"

That got a small chuckle out of Louise, much to Montmorency's surprise. "No," Louise answered.

"If I had been around when they were... um, fresher, I could have done something to make them fade better," Montmorency said.

"It's nothing to worry about."

Montmorency sighed. "Listen... I want to talk to you about something."

Louise motioned with her head. "Walk with me then. I'm supposed to patrol."

The blonde furrowed her brow, walking at Louise's side. "You're supposed to patrol? Can I ask why?"

"I'm working," Louise answered. "I'm part of the guard detail right now."

"Oh. I see."

The girls moved in to the shade of the walkway underneath the superstructure.

"So what is it?" Louise asked.

Montmorency waited until they emerged on to the stern deck. "About at the Academy..."

Louise stopped. She stared out towards the hills. "Oh, that. You know, I honestly hadn't thought much of all that for a while now."

That caught Montmorency a little off guard. She expected Louise to be the kind of person to hold a grudge. "But... I want to apologize for what I did to you. It wasn't right."

Louise fixed Montmorency with a look that the blonde couldn't make sense out of, and now she realized how different Louise looked. Aside from the jarring scars, the fiery spark of determination that had always been in Louise's eyes was gone. "Did Kirche put you up to this?" Louise asked.

"No." Montmorency bit her lip. "Well, sort of. I planned on it eventually."

Louise turned away. "Maybe I should just tell you what I told Kirche when she apologized."

"What did you tell her?" Montmorency asked, curious.

In the flattest and plainest voice, Louise said it. "Fuck you."

Montmorency balked. "W-what?" Surprised again, she found Louise donning a small grin.

"That felt kind of good, honestly," Louise said, chuckling. "I was pretty mad when I said that to Kirche. I haven't even told Kirche I've already forgiven her. Maybe I should do that soon."

"...I think I deserve much more than a vulgar insult," Montmorency said quietly.

Louise whirled around on her heel. "But do you want to know what I learned at the Academy, Montmorency? Nobody ever notices your tears, nobody ever notices your pain, and nobody ever notices how hard you've been trying all of your Founder-damned life, but they always seem to notice your mistakes, don't they? I've always wondered why that is."

Montmorency looked away, ashamed. "I'm so sorry, Louise."

"You're forgiven."

Montmorency perked up. "Just like that?"

Louise nodded. "Just like that."

A silence grew between them. Louise turned away, back to the marshes, while Montmorency didn't really know what to say next.

But after some searching, she found something. "Everybody thinks you've died."

"I know."

"I didn't think you did," Montmorency continued. "I prayed you were still alive, somewhere."

"So you could apologize?"

"Partly," the blonde said. "I just didn't want you to be dead. You didn't deserve that. You don't deserve all of this."

"None of us do," Louise said tiredly.

Montmorency bit back another sigh. "Have you... ever killed somebody?"

"Yes," Louise answered.

"How many?"

"I lost count."

Montmorency winced. "Oh."

"The first time I killed somebody, I was with Kirche," Louise went on, while Montmorency listened raptly. "Four bandits ambushed us, and they were going to rape us. I killed them all without even thinking about it, with one of their own guns." She snorted morbidly. "I even still have the thing."

Now Montmorency really didn't know what to say, but Louise continued.

"I felt horrible about it for days, weeks. I felt like a monster for doing something like that; watching somebody beg for their life, and then just killing them anyway." Louise turned to Montmorency, her face a mask. "But now, when I look back on it, I don't feel bad at all. I don't feel anything. What does that make me? Is that what makes me a monster?"

Montmorency remained silent until Louise looked away. "You're not a monster, Louise."

"I look like one."

"Don't say that," Montmorency said firmly.

Louise introduced a swift change of subject. "So where did you end up when you went through the green oval?"

"In the Cordon, in the rookie village," Montmorency answered. "Have you heard of it?"

"In passing," Louise said.

"I was in Sidorovich's care for a few days," Montmorency continued. "Afterward I was trained by a couple of stalkers. Drifter and Tolik mostly, and Awl too."

"Oh, you know Awl?" Louise asked, surprised.

"You know Awl?" Montmorency countered.

Louise shrugged. "We've met. Those stalkers, were they good people?"

"Yes, they were," Montmorency affirmed, confident. "A rare breed around here, it seems." She scoffed. "They liked to tease, though. They never ever called me by my name. It was always Monty this, or Monty that. I hated it."

Louise suddenly broke out into a fit of light giggles.

Montmorency narrowed her eyes. "What?"

"They called you Monty?" Louise laughed. "Oh Founder above..."

Montmorency huffed. "They did." Then, she realized her error. "Oh – please don't tell Siesta that's my stalker name. I have the feeling that I'll never be called Montmorency again."

Louise eyed the blonde wryly. "You're the only one of us who actually has a stalker name. But I don't have to tell her, because you already did."

Confused, Montmorency arched an eyebrow. "...What?"

Louise motioned past with a flick of her head, and turning, Montmorency felt her heart sink. Standing against the superstructure, smoking a cigarette, was Siesta. "But – how long have you just been standing there!?" Montmorency blurted.

Siesta laughed, full and loud. She wasn't wearing all of her gear, just a t-shirt and pants. "Long enough to know that I'm calling you Monty from now on."

Montmorency groaned, hanging her head.

Louise stepped away, intent on completing her patrol. "She's completely insufferable, but you'll get used to her."

As Louise entered into the opposite walkway, Siesta snorted. "Yeah, yeah, go on Vallière," she called. With Louise gone, Siesta stepped forward, stamping on her burned out cigarette on the way. "So Monty."

Montmorency sighed raggedly. "Yes?"

Siesta's face took on an unexpected serious light. "Look, I really am sorry I couldn't tell you what you wanted to know."

Montmorency waved her off glumly. "No, no. It's fine. I half expected it, honestly."

"We're getting a guide to bring us into Yanov Station tomorrow, or the next day. Or whenever the hell Pilot shows up again," Siesta grumbled. "I assume you'll be joining our little group."

"Well, um, I mean I'd love to," Montmorency said, hesitant. "If-if that's alright with the others."

"Sure it is. Why wouldn't it be?"

"It's just, Louise and I. At the Academy, we..."

"I know all about that," Siesta cut in, dismissive. "I heard it from Kirche. Louise is fine with it. I already asked her."

"That's..." Montmorency smiled, relieved. "That's good then."

Siesta nodded idly. She motioned for Montmorency to follow. "Come back down. You might get picked off up here."

Montmorency followed Siesta through the door, gaping. "But Louise is up here!"

"Yeah, I know," Siesta said with a grumble. "She knows the dangers."

They went downstairs, and Siesta led them to Tremor's office. Inside, Kirche was sitting on top of the desk while Tabitha lounged in the chair.

"And so when I got to the riverbed I accidentally fell in," Kirche was saying. "That's when I –"

Siesta had only gotten about two feet into the room when all of the lights went out. The sounds of protest came from the bar below, and the ever present dull hum of the ship's only working engine had disappeared.

"Oh, yeah," Siesta groaned. "That's great. Love it."

"W-what's happening?" Montmorency asked nervously.

Kirche sighed in the darkness. "The engine died."

"Again," Siesta added with displeasure. "Hold on, I'll try to find my –" There was a loud smack. "Fuck!"

Kirche stifled her laughter. "Are you alright?"

"I hit my knee on the freaking bed."

At the sound of that, Kirche decided against stifling her laughter.

"Frig off, Kirche," Siesta grumbled. "I'll come over there and kick your ass."

"Follow the sound of my voice," Kirche taunted playfully.

The sounds of rummaging came from nearby.

"What are you looking for?" Montmorency asked.

"For my..." Siesta made a squeak of triumph. "Here it is." She flicked on her flashlight, and found that the beam was inadvertently pointed right in Tabitha's face. The Gallian shielded her eyes. "Oh, shit. Sorry."

"Does this happen often?" Montmorency asked, taking a seat on the bottom bunk in the now dimly lit room.

Siesta nodded. "Recently, yeah. They'll get it running again in a bit," she said. She sat next to Montmorency, and directed the flashlight up underneath her chin. "Who wants to hear a ghost story?"

Kirche rolled her eyes. "Siesta, ghosts are the last thing I'm afraid of right now."

"What about poltergeists?" Siesta asked.

"But they're not actually ghosts."

Montmorency looked between the two girls. "...Poltergeist?"

Siesta and Kirche both ignored the blonde. "How do you know?" Siesta pointed out playfully.

Kirche snorted, grinning. "Whatever. So what, is it story time with Siesta now?"

"You know what, I think it is," Siesta proclaimed.

Montmorency eyed Siesta weirdly. "Story time? Is that a thing you do?"

"It is," Kirche answered. "Siesta has lots of stories."

Being that Siesta had been in the Zone for four years, Montmorency supposed that was true. The blonde only half- heartedly paid attention as Siesta began her tale, about a man who had come to the Zone looking for his brother. Montmorency's thoughts were elsewhere. She felt elation; she and Tabitha had found Kirche, and Louise had turned out to be alive and well. On the other hand, however, depression and sorrow clenched at her heart.

Because right now, Montmorency firmly believed that she would never see Halkeginia again.

 _End of The Life of a Stalker_

* * *

 _A/N: I know what some of you might be thinking: wtf? Well, it seems that The Life of a Stalker come to an end here._

 _Don't fret, I've read the reviews and it seems to be the general consensus that I should not go ahead and do the next arc in a series of flashbacks, and I won't. Things will continue on much like they have been. Other than Monty-chan and Tabby Cat searching for Siesta, The Life of a Stalker didn't have much in the way of an actual plot, hence the arc's name._

 _I've decided to split The Life of a Stalker in two._

 _The next arc will have a more defined plotline, although there will still be some of the slice of life moments that I know some of you enjoy. I won't give away the details of it, but I think the title will give some of you a general idea._

 _So, stay tuned for the next act of Stalker Zero, which I've titled: The Road to Pripyat._

 _Also, on a side note, do you guys know how tedious it gets when you have to type 'Montmorency' over and over and over? Shit._

 _At the end of Humble Beginnings I left you guys a little teaser, although that particular scene didn't make it into The Life of a Stalker like I had initially planned. It'll still come up, but it's been pushed ahead to a later part of the story. Like, way ahead. Like, two acts ahead._

 _So, like last time, here's a little preview. There will be minor spoilers, so don't read ahead if you don't want some little things spoiled for you. You've been warned._

* * *

Louise tried to get her breathing under control. Now definitely wasn't the time to panic. The telescoping stock of the M4A1 stuck out from underneath the rubble, but when she pulled at it the stock came away with the buffer tube still attached. She cursed weakly, throwing the piece of polymer at the wall.

It seemed they hadn't gotten far enough away from the blast zone when they had sprinted from the window. The T-80 had done a number on the wall. The window didn't even exist anymore, and the wall separating the room from the hallway had collapsed in a mess of drywall and wooden studs.

Siesta hadn't regained consciousness, still lying on her side facing away. Thankfully, Louise didn't have to move to jostle her.

"Siesta," Louise croaked, shaking the stalker by her shoulder. "Siesta, wake up. You have to wake up."

When she didn't respond, Louise rolled Siesta onto her back, and took in a horrifying sight. Her heart stopped dead, and her stomach grew cold.

Sticking out of Siesta's vest was a jagged section of shrapnel.

Louise's earlier attempt at breathing control was for naught. Siesta laid still, eyes closed and mouth hanging slightly agape.

"No, no," Louise muttered, shaking Siesta more. Tears began to spill freely as her voice cracked. "No Siesta, you can't... No... Please, Founder, no... don't leave me here like this..."

Louise wasn't sure if her prayers were answered, but she couldn't remember feeling so much joy when Siesta groaned and her eyes fluttered open.

"What... the hell," Siesta forced out, coughing. She found Louise's eyes. "What... why are you crying? What's going..."

She followed Louise's gaze, to her chest. "Oh fuck! Shit! Is that fucking in me right now?"

"Siesta!" Louise cried as the former maid began prying at the metal. "Stop! Just – calm down!"

Siesta promptly ignored Louise. The tearing of Velcro echoed as Siesta worked at the sides of her plate carrier. She felt underneath her vest, and after a moment's searching her head fell back as she let out unrestrained laugher. "It didn't go through. Oh man. My plate stopped it. That really scared the shit out of me."

Louise let out a heavy sigh of relief. "Founder above, Siesta... I thought you were dead."

Siesta's laugher drifted off into a groan. "My freaking chest... that really hurts. I hope I didn't break any ribs." She hefted herself to a sit, hissing. "I'm the luckiest bitch in the Zone, aren't I?"

"Yes, you are," Louise weakly agreed. Her eyes went down to her leg. "I just wish I was as lucky as you."

"What?" Siesta said, confused. "What are you..." Then, her eyes found it. Sticking out from the meat of Louise's profusely bleeding calf, was a long section of splintered wood. Any relief Siesta had felt was sucked back.


	26. The Road to Pripyat I

_The Road to Pripyat I_

 _Yanov Station_

 _September 5th, 2012_

 _18:26_

Pilot shook off the chills of the Zone's perpetually dull weather. Why the Zone was plagued with low temperatures was beyond him. He just knew that it didn't get half as warm as it did on the outside. "So, here we are." His deadpan voice dripped with forced enthusiasm as he spread his arms wide. "Yanov Station."

Siesta stepped up to his side, eyeing over the arrangements. The lobby of Yanov Station was a long room with a high ceiling, accentuated by a chandelier caked with dust and grime. The service window at the far end of the room had once housed dispatchers and desk jockeys, but was now called home by the local trader who doubled as a barman.

But the most curious thing Siesta noticed was the smell of something baking. It smelled amazing.

She looked to the others, searching their faces for what could have been some approval. Louise and Kirche both looked over the architecture curiously, Montmorency looked dead tired, and Tabitha was impassive as always.

Pilot turned to face the rest of his clients. "There's room to sleep in the basement, and in the offices upstairs." He pointed to the right. "The north wing is Freedom's side of the station. They've got working toilets and showers."

"Showers?" Louise asked. She looked to Siesta for clarification. "What's a 'shower'?"

"Clean," Siesta answered, grinning.

That was all Louise needed to hear. A dreamy expression crossed her scarred face. "Clean..."

Siesta turned to Pilot. "So Freedom's got some guys around here?"

"Yeah," Pilot answered. "And Duty does too."

Siesta narrowed her eyes, confused. That sounded like a bit of an issue to her. "Really?"

"Freedom on the north side, and Duty on the south side," Pilot explained, pointing to the right and the left.

"In the same building?" Montmorency asked, just as confused as Siesta.

"Yeah."

"And they aren't shooting at each other?" Siesta asked.

"Nope."

"Well that's weird," Siesta muttered. She quickly shrugged it off. "Oh well. At least we know which side of the building is more fun."

"Uh huh," Pilot drawled. "So if you need me, I'll be over with the other free stalkers." He sauntered off towards a small collection of populated tables against the wall.

Siesta turned to the rest of her group. "So, wanna take a look around?"

Montmorency groaned. "I'm so tired. I just want to sit down."

"And I want a drink," Kirche added. Tabitha didn't say anything, but if Siesta's guesses were correct the blue-haired mage would likely stay glued to Kirche's side.

"Yeah, fine," Siesta grumbled. "Go sit down then Monty, and go get a drink Kirche, you freaking alcoholic."

Kirche sucked her teeth, heading off towards the bar in search of alcoholic comforts with Tabitha close behind. Montmorency chose a vacant table, and sat herself down with a great sigh of relief.

"Well, looks like it's just me and you, Lou," Siesta said to the last person present.

Louise glared. "It'll just be you if you call me that again."

"Aw, come on Lou, I –"

Louise promptly turned away and began making tracks for Montmorency's table.

Siesta jumped forward and grabbed her by the arm. "Wait, wait! Come on, don't be like that Louise."

Louise pointed dangerously. "Last chance."

"Lighten up a little, would you?" Siesta whined.

"We've been walking all day," Louise pointed out, disgruntled. "I'm tired. Piss off with the 'Lou' stuff. That's almost as bad as being called Zero."

Siesta turned away. "Jeez, you'd think it was your time of the month again," she muttered.

"What did you just say?"

Siesta looked back to Louise, a wide grin on her face. "I said lets go check out Freedom's side of the place."

Louise knew well enough that wasn't even close to what Siesta had said, but she followed regardless. Leaving the lobby, the next room was much smaller, and served as a nexus for a handful of doorways. There were a few occupied tables with Freedom stalkers loitering about, and oddly, an oven.

At least Siesta had found out where the smell of baked goods was coming from.

"What's that smell?" Louise asked. She took in a deep breath. "Founder, that's amazing."

Siesta nodded her stout agreement. "I could just stand in here all day."

Nobody seemed to make much of their presence. The majority of the Freedom stalkers busied themselves with their own conversations, or just sitting around brooding. Louise watched as somebody pried open the oven's door and removed a metal baking pan with a heavy mitten.

The amazing smell had just gotten even more amazing. Louise sighed happily.

The Freedom stalker turned baker took notice of the two girls. His face lit up in recognition. "Hey, Siesta!"

Siesta's attention was caught. She looked, and laughed. "Ganja!" Louise hung back awkwardly when Siesta strode forward and greeted Ganja with what she noted to be an odd handshake. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know," Ganja began, brandishing a combat knife. He started cutting the baked goods into even sections. "Putting my skills to use."

Another Freedom stalker emerged from a doorway, a scoped rifle on his back. He stopped, giving Siesta a double take. "Siesta? Holy shit."

Siesta squealed in delight as she leapt forward and hugged the man. Louise eyed the spectacle with a raised brow. "Uncle Yar! I haven't seen you in forever man!"

Uncle Yar snorted as they separated. "And here I thought you ran off and died somewhere."

Siesta responded with a dismissive scoff. "Yeah, right. You can't get rid of me that easily."

"No kidding. Your Ukrainian's gotten a hell of a lot better too," Yar remarked. A thoughtful expression crossed his face. "Hey, listen. Can I talk to you about something for a minute?"

Louise felt a slight twinge in her stomach. She didn't feel so keen on the idea of Siesta going off somewhere with this random person, although she couldn't quite place the reason why. She chalked it up to her disgruntlement at suddenly just being left alone. Siesta didn't go far anyway, only to the other end of the room. Louise was just going to go back to the lobby to join Kirche and the others, but the figure looming over gave her pause.

Ganja stared down, baking pan in hand. "Friend of Siesta's?" He asked seriously.

"Oh, um, yes, I am," Louise answered awkwardly.

Ganja's serious expression broke, and he laughed. "Good answer. Then you're my friend too." He held up the pan. "Here, take a couple."

Louise looked over the concoction. "What are these?"

"Brownies."

Louise furrowed her brow. "What's a brownie?"

Ganja's face turned to bewilderment. "You've never had a brownie before?"

"No."

"Oh well," Ganja shrugged. "Take a few anyway."

Louise had no objections to that, because they smelled absolutely delicious. There was no way of knowing if she'd ever run into an opportunity like this again. So, graciously, Louise piled three of the cake-like squares into her hand. She bit down on the first.

As Ganja stalked away Louise noted that the brownies were excellent, although she did find that there was a bit of an odd aftertaste. She passed it off. Eagerly, she wolfed the remaining brownies down.

She considered asking for more, but decided against it as Ganja seemed to be handing them out to nearly everybody. It didn't take long for Siesta to return from her conversation with Uncle Yar.

"So, five minutes then?" Uncle Yar asked.

"Yeah," Siesta said over shoulder. "Five minutes, sure." Uncle Yar nodded, and split away through a nearby doorway.

"Five minutes?" Louise asked. "Five minutes for what?"

Siesta flapped her hand. "I got a thing. You coming with?"

Louise shrugged. "I suppose."

They left Freedom's side of the station and found the others sitting at the table Montmorency had claimed. Kirche had her drink, it seemed, and Tabitha sat at her side, listening to her talk. Across the table, Montmorency still looked tired out. Louise took a place next to the bushed blonde, while Siesta robbed another table of a chair and positioned it at the end.

"'Sup bitches?" Siesta greeted.

Kirche snorted, while Montmorency fixed Siesta with a square look. Tabitha didn't react, and Louise was still busy shuffling her chair.

"You didn't get me a drink!" Siesta lamented to Kirche.

"What? You didn't ask me to," Kirche replied.

Siesta and Kirche went on, bantering playfully back and forth while Tabitha silently looked on.

"So I suppose this will be home for a while now," Montmorency said to Louise.

"Home, sweet home," Louise said dryly, drawing a light snort out of the blonde. "At least it isn't all rusty. And there aren't any marshes."

Montmorency nodded her agreement.

"Count yourself lucky you weren't Zaton for that long," Louise continued. "I had to live in that slog for... an... um, entire..." She trailed off, blinking.

Montmorency gave her a weird look. "...an entire what?"

Louise opened her mouth to continue, but promptly forgot what she had been about to say. Her mouth merely remained slightly agape. The strangest feeling had just enveloped her entire being. Her head swam and she felt sluggish, like the air around her body had just become thick and syrupy. It wasn't unpleasant, like a soft and warm pressure was caressing her brain, but it terrified her all the same.

Her breathing began to pick up as she started panicking.

Montmorency watched with frightful interest. "Louise, what's wrong?" She laid a hand on the pink-haired girl's shoulder. Louise jolted, and Montmorency found herself met with a wide-eyed stare. "Are you alright? Louise?"

The others had overheard. Siesta and Kirche cut their conversation short, and the former found Louise looking around the room desperately with an expression of absolute terror on her face. "Louise?" Siesta said, concerned. "Hey, what's the matter?"

Louise cradled her head. "Some... something's wrong with me... My head feels... it feels weird. Something... I-I don't know..."

Siesta left her seat, her concern growing tenfold. She put a hand on Louise's shoulder. "Look at me. Come on." She stared into Louise's eyes, finding them wild and full of fear. "Tell us what's wrong with you."

"It's my head," Louise said. She sounded strangely close to choking up.

"Does it hurt?" Siesta asked.

"No..." Louise answered. "It doesn't hurt, but it's... it's just..."

"When did it start?" Siesta pressed. "Just now?"

Louise nodded quickly.

Siesta thought back, trying to dig up anything that might have caused this situation. While she was talking with Uncle Yar, she specifically remembered seeing Louise eat the brownies Ganja offered to her.

Then, it clicked.

Siesta sighed. "Oh, for the love of..."

By this time, Kirche, Tabitha, and Montmorency had all grown seriously concerned. "What is it?" Kirche asked, worried. "What's wrong with her?"

"She's just high."

"She's what?" Montmorency sputtered. Tabitha stared on, while Kirche threw her head back in a loud laugh.

"Y-yeah!" Louise cried fearfully. "I'm what? What am I!?"

"You're high as fuck, Louise," Siesta answered, laughing. "Holy crap."

"B-but I don't understand... h-how could I be?"

"The brownies," Siesta explained. "Those were weed brownies."

"Weed brownies?" Montmorency asked. "What are those?"

"You know, marijuana, cannabis," Siesta clarified. "I should have expected that. The guy's name is freaking Ganja after all."

"B-but... no!" Louise sputtered, unable to understand. "I don't do those sorts of things!"

"Louise, you're baked out of your damn mind!" Siesta said, enticing another laugh out of Kirche. "Just relax, alright? You'll be fine. Just... uh, embrace it. It'll wear off in a couple hours."

Louise balked. "Hours!?"

Before she could say anything more, Siesta heard her name called out from across the lobby. "Siesta! You ready to go?"

"Shit," Siesta hissed. She turned to Uncle Yar. "Yeah! Two seconds!" Finding that Uncle Yar had acknowledged her, she turned back to the others.

Kirche spoke first. "What's that all about?"

"I got a thing," Siesta said. "I was going to take Louise, but I can't really do that now."

Kirche shrugged. "I can go."

"No," Siesta quickly denied. "I need you to stay here and look after Louise. I'll take Monty."

"What?" Montmorency asked, surprised. "...Did I just get volunteered?"

Kirche snorted. "You did."

Resigned, Montmorency rose from her chair and put her throbbing feet into motion. While Montmorency gathered her gear, Siesta continued speaking to Kirche. "Alright, so while we're gone you should do that thing we talked about."

"That thing?" Kirche asked. "Oh, you mean getting Tabitha another gun? I thought we couldn't spare the money right now?"

"It'll be fine," Siesta reassured, handing off a bundle of banknotes to the Germanian. "I'm getting a few grand off Uncle Yar for tagging along, so we can spare that much." She looked to Tabitha. "Try and find something that won't beat the crap out of you every time you shoot it, alright?"

Both Kirche and Tabitha nodded in affirmation.

Siesta and Montmorency left the table, meeting with Uncle Yar halfway across the room. Kirche watched them leave through the door. She turned back to Louise, and found that the pink-haired girl had taken an invested interest in her own hands.

And thus, Kirche von Zerbst found herself watching after a completely blitzed Louise.

* * *

"We're heading for a small village called Kopatchy," Uncle Yar said as they passed beneath a towering metal pylon. He spoke more to Montmorency than Siesta, who had already gotten the news. He pointed ahead. "We can't see it because of the fog that's rolled in, but it's out that way. Only about half a mile."

Montmorency glanced over her shoulder at the shrinking derelict box cars and station house. The fog had come in before they had reached Yanov Station earlier, bringing visibility down to a frighteningly close range.

The group moved down a grassy hill, coming into a small marsh-like area. Two ponds flanked them on either side as they travelled the small strip of land between. To the right, Montmorency could see the vague shape of a large building with two thin smoke stacks stretching to the sky, and on the left she could see the bulky shape of a bunker not unlike the one she had seen in Yantar during her single visit there. It had thick sloping walls, a venerable fortress in these parts. She didn't doubt that it was heavily defended.

A rickety wire fence was the only sign the village was nearing. Most sections were collapsed, but the faded yellow signpost adorned with a black hazard symbol didn't go unnoticed to Montmorency. She had seen them before, and the usually didn't mean anything good.

As if on cue, Siesta's detector sprung to life on her belt. The Geiger counter emitted a raspy ticking.

"Yeah, there's a few hotspots around here," Yar pointed out. "Not too bad, though. Nothing some vodka can't fix."

"Is that actually true?" Montmorency asked as the left the fence behind. "That vodka prevents radiation poisoning?"

Siesta laughed. "Who knows? Not like I need an excuse to get drunk anyway."

Montmorency huffed. "You shouldn't drink so much."

"Why?" Siesta asked, winking with a smirk. "The liquor makes me see it clearly, Monty."

"See what clearly?"

Siesta refrained from answering as she laughed.

Uncle Yar chuckled. "So you haven't changed much."

"Not even a little," Siesta snorted.

Montmorency was the first to notice it. As they neared the decaying ruins of a house, she saw a figure shambling through the fog. She froze in place, stomach knotting. In a tight grip, the Simonov swung up.

Only for Siesta to clamp a hand down on the upper handguard and force the weapon back down. Montmorency eyed Siesta incredulously, who shook her head. The dark-haired stalker pointed to Montmorency's left, and turning her head, she saw even more of them, shuffling about in random patterns.

They seemed to be surrounded.

"It's a nice little village," Uncle Yar spoke up quietly. He let out a sardonic snort. "Just don't disturb any of the residents."

Montmorency was on the verge of a complete freak-out, and Siesta took notice. She leaned in, speaking quietly near the blonde's ear. "Don't make any sudden movements or loud noises and they might just leave us alone."

A hasty nod was Montmorency's only response. They continued on in oppressive silence, following Uncle Yar past an old excavator and towards what seemed to be the only house left standing.

Though the house was still standing all of the windows had been broken out, allowing years of silt and debris to manifest inside. The group stalked down a central hallway, and Uncle Yar led them to a perpendicular stairwell. They ascended, finding themselves in an attic. There was a large hole in the roof that gave them a view of the zombie-infested village, and near that, a window.

Yar approached the window, unslinging his Dragunov.

Siesta and Montmorency stood in the middle of the room, confused. "So what now?" Siesta asked.

"Now, we wait for our friends to show up," Uncle Yar said.

* * *

Ushering Louise along with a hand on her shoulder, Kirche approached the service window with Tabitha in tow. Louise's high was still in full force, made evident by the deliriously happy expression on her face, and the wobble in her steps.

Louise hadn't spoken much after Siesta and Montmorency had left with Uncle Yar. Instead, she had devoted most of her time to staring at her own hands, flexing her fingers, and laughing.

Hawaiian was still in the same place behind the window. He served the same function of Beard and Owl combined, Kirche supposed. He was much younger than either of the Skadovsk's traders, and in the Germanian's educated opinion, much cuter. "Hey!" He greeted enthusiastically. "Back for more?"

Kirche made sure Louise remained nearby. "Well, no," she said, smiling. Tabitha laid the Mosin-Nagant M44 and accompanying bandolier of ammunition out before the trader. "We need something cheap to replace this."

Hawaiian chuckled, looking over Tabitha. "Yeah, I can see why. How's your shoulder?"

"Bruised," Tabitha replied.

Hawaiian took the rifle and cloth belt and made for the back room. "I think I have something that'll work," he called over his shoulder. After about a minute of rummaging around, Hawaiian returned with a weapon that was a stark contrast compared to the Mosin. He set it down in front of Tabitha, sans magazine. "PPS-43," he said. "Pretty light on recoil, fully- automatic, and cheap as hell."

Tabitha took the weapon into her hands. She immediately realized it was much lighter than the Mosin, and seemed to have been thrown together in a far more crude fashion. Much like the rifles Louise and Siesta hefted around, there was nary a speck of wood to be seen; it was all steel. She pressed the folding stock into her shoulder. As far as guns went, it seemed to fit her rather well. "How much?" She asked.

"Well with what you just gave me, I could go for three-thousand and I'll throw in a bunch of ammo and mags," Hawaiian offered.

Tabitha looked to Kirche, who nodded. The Germanian dug into her pocket. "That sounds good to me," she said.

Hawaiian accepted the cash with a grin, and again disappeared into the back to retrieve the ammunition for Tabitha. Kirche simply waited, drumming her fingers on the counter top. Suddenly, she felt a furious tugging at her coat.

Kirche turned to Tabitha, finding that the blue-haired girl's face was creased with surprise and concern. It was rare for

Tabitha to show emotion in such a fashion. "Tabitha? What's the matter?" She asked, surprised.

Tabitha pointed. "Louise."

Looking to where she was sure Louise was still standing, Kirche was horrified to find that the pink-haired girl was actually gone altogether. She gaped. "Bloody hell!" She swore, whirling back on Tabitha. "Where did she go?" She asked frantically.

Tabitha shrugged, at a loss. Hawaiian returned with a bandolier stuffed full of magazines, unaware of the crisis occurring on the other side of the window.

"Did you see where she went?" Kirche asked to the trader, who raised an eyebrow.

"Who?" Hawaiian asked.

"Louise!" Kirche answered, pointing to where the girl had been standing. When Hawaiian still looked confused, Kirche clarified. "The one with the pink hair!"

Hawaiian pointed to his left. "Uh, I think she went over that way."

Kirche left Tabitha to collect the ammo, striding purposefully towards Freedom's side of the station. There, she was bewildered and shocked to find Louise with chocolate smeared around her mouth as she hungrily fed another set of brownies to herself.

"Louise!" Kirche cried.

Louise looked, her face lighting up like a child's. "Kirche! I missed you!"

Kirche ignored that odd remark. "What are you doing?" She practically shrieked. The Freedom stalkers looked on at the spectacle, many of them laughing amongst themselves.

"You wouldn't believe it," Louise said, her mouth completely full. Crumbs flew out as she spoke. "But I am so hungry!"

"But..." Kirche balked in disbelief. "Those things did this to you in the first place you cretin! You're only going to make it worse!"

Louise paused, her expression morphing to realization. "Oh... I forgot." Despite saying that, she funneled the last of the brownies into her mouth.

Kirche grasped Louise by her wrist, and cast a glare towards the Freedom stalkers. "Stop giving her those things for God's sake!"

Ganja laughed. "Aw, come on. She likes them!"

Kirche let out a loud growl of frustration, which only served to entice the laughter around them. She stomped out into the lobby, pulling Louise along. Kirche felt Louise's arm squirm in her grasp, and then fingers intertwined with her own. She brought her hand up, confused. "Louise, what are you...?"

Louise broke into a fit of giggles. "Look at them! Hands are so weird! It looks like I have so many fingers now."

Kirche was at a complete loss. She did know one thing, however. Siesta was going to absolutely murder her for this.

* * *

"You know, if I had known you were going to bring us to zombie town I would have told you to eat shit," Siesta grumbled.

Uncle Yar laughed. "And that's why I didn't tell you."

Nearby, Montmorency sat against the wall in silence, her knees brought up to her chest, while Siesta leaned against a roof truss, casually smoking.

"So how long are you planning on hanging around here?" Uncle Yar asked. He still directed a steady gaze through the window, paying rapt attention to the goings-on outside.

"Until we decide to wander off somewhere else I guess," Siesta answered smoothly. "So what's the deal with Freedom and Duty in the same place?" Montmorency noticeably perked up, curious to know the answer as well.

Uncle Yar snorted disdainfully. "They've called a ceasefire in this area. It gets a little tense sometimes, and there have been a few fist-fights here and there, but no shots fired yet. Everybody's got enough shit to deal with around here anyway with the freaking bandits wandering all over the place, and the damn zombies too. Pripyat being just over the hills doesn't help things either."

Siesta scoffed loudly at the mention of Pripyat.

"Yup," Yar went on. "I think this is as deep in the Zone as I'll ever want to get. A lot of stalkers are throwing around plans to find a route into Pripyat. Like hell I'm getting involved in any of that."

"But... it's just over the hills, isn't it?" Montmorency spoke up. "How hard could it be?"

"Yeah, but this is the Zone," Siesta pointed out. "It's not as simple as just walking over there."

Uncle Yar nodded in agreement. "Nobody's found a way through all the anomalies and radiation yet." He looked to Siesta. "You gonna jump on the bandwagon?"

Siesta scoffed, flicking the remainder of the cigarette across the room. "I haven't even been around here a day yet. I've gotta stir up some trouble first before I think of doing something crazy like that."

Uncle Yar laughed. "Like you would."

"So nobody has any ideas at all for a route so far?" Siesta asked.

"Well." Uncle Yar looked thoughtful. "As far as I know, no. A couple of weeks ago Grizzly and his guys were out scavenging. They found a flight data recorder and a bunch of other crap in one of the crashed heli's to the south, right in the middle of a minefield."

"Well that must have been fun," Siesta remarked sarcastically, although the specifics of a 'flight data recorder' were a little lost on her.

Yar snorted. "Yeah. The black box had a bunch of recordings and data left on it. Apparently those military guys had a bunch of emergency evac points set up. One was at the AA complex, just a few miles south, one was back in Zaton, at the Skadovsk of all places, and the other one is right in the middle of Pripyat. I think that's what got everybody going in the first place."

"Doesn't anybody remember what happened the first time a bunch of people broke through? Like, right after the scorcher went down?" Siesta grunted, crossing her arms.

"Apparently not," Uncle Yar replied.

"What happened?" Montmorency spoke up, curious.

"Well there was this huge emission," Siesta explained. "And –"

"Save it for later," Uncle Yar swiftly cut in. "Our friends are here."

Siesta readied her weapon in an instant, creeping up next to Uncle Yar. Montmorency did the same, standing behind and between the two looking over their shoulders. A squad of five men warily advanced through the center of the village, doing their utmost to keep the local residents docile.

Studying them, Siesta realized that they were likely mercenaries. This lot donned a woodland camouflage, not unlike the mercenaries she had encountered beneath the substation in Zaton, and were all outfitted with kevlar helmets and heavy ballistic vests that served to give them a bloated appearance. Though, unlike Siesta's matte black helmet, these mercenaries had covered their own helmets with a camouflage covering that matched the rest of their attire.

"Mercs?" Siesta said quietly. "We're waiting for some mercs?"

"Yeap," Uncle Yar muttered lowly. His Dragunov rifle swung up, and he gazed through the optic. He sighted in a mercenary at random, setting the PSO-1's uppermost chevron at waist level.

"Well what now then?" Siesta hissed impatiently. "You could clue me in, you know."

"Now, we start the show." Without missing a beat, Yar's finger twitched down on the trigger, and the Dragunov roared. The bullet snapped through the distance to the mercenary in a near-instant and ploughed straight though his hip. He dropped to the ground like a sack of flour. His cries of shock and agony drifted up through the village, reaching Siesta's and Montmorency's ears easily.

Then, as if it hadn't already, all hell broke loose.

The zombies, attracted by the mercenary's cries, turned on the group as one. Gunfire erupted like the drumming of rain, disjointed and haphazard cracks, and long inaccurate bursts. The mercenaries scattered in search of cover, leaving their fallen comrade to the mercy of the zombified stalkers.

Siesta raised her rifle, swearing loudly. "Yar! You could have giving me some fucking warning!"

"Yeah, yeah!" Yar yelled back. "Just waste these assholes!"

As Siesta joined Uncle Yar's fire, Montmorency, in a state of panic, had no idea what to do. Perhaps if she had known they were going to get into a gunfight with trained professionals she could have tried to mentally prepare herself, but right know she was caught with her pants down around her ankles.

There was no room to squeeze in at the window, so Montmorency moved over to the hole in the roof instead. Gazing down the Simonov's simple sights, she searched for a target.

A mercenary dove behind a low brick wall, huddling away from incoming fire. He peeked up, sending rounds downrange. Montmorency sighted in his head, and fired, once, twice, and then three times.

Whether she had hit the man or not was an unknown, but the white cloud of dust wafting away with the wind showed that her bullets and gone approximately where she had wanted them to.

A volley of automatic fire raked overhead, punching cleanly through shingles and wood. Montmorency fell back on her bottom, shrieking.

Siesta swore from nearby. "The damn zombies are shooting at us too!"

"Light 'em the fuck up!" Was Uncle Yar's reply.

Breathing deep and offering a simple mental prayer, Montmorency got back up to a crouch and found an offending zombie, shambling in their direction as he sluggishly reloaded. She let off three rounds at its torso, and it slumped over face-first. She changed targets to another zombie, who was aiming elsewhere, and felled it with another three rounds.

The mercenary behind the brick wall was back up and firing. Montmorency got a single round off in his direction, and was dismayed to find that the Simonov's bolt had locked rearward. She ducked away, hands searching in desperation for a stripper clip.

Siesta's magazine ran dry. She wrenched back on the charging handle, and locked it upward. "I got one!" She called to Uncle Yar. The mercenary she had dropped had been found sprinting between cover, which had ultimately been the wrong thing to do.

Yar fired, painfully aware the Dragunov's magazine was getting down on the last few rounds. "Another one down!"

As Siesta fished a loaded magazine into the G3A3's receiver, Montmorency called out as she struggled to load the SKS. "There's one behind that brick wall!"

"Which brick wall?" Uncle Yar hollered back.

Montmorency observed the situation, feeling the blind fear that a bullet was going to come her way. "B-by the car! On the right!"

Yar adjusted his aim, finding a head in his sights. His bullet punched through the helmet's kevlar almost as if it hadn't even been there in the first place. Noticing something suspicious in the corner of his eye, he cantered the rifle and came to find that the bolt had locked open. "Got him!" He called, unlatching the magazine.

Siesta fired on another zombie. "How many does that leave?"

"One merc, and a handful of zombies," Uncle Yar answered.

The dwindling zombies turned on the occupants of the house after losing track of the final mercenary. Years of firearms experience allowed Siesta to down two of them, one right after the other.

Another zombie slumped over as two bullets from Montmorency's rifle tore through its chest cavity. The next zombie in

her sights fell over backward, squirming on the ground before being stilled by a series of finishing shots.

Kopatchy village grew eerily silent in wake of the roaring firefight.

"Shit," Siesta spat. "Where's that last merc at?" Uncle Yar seemed to be coming up empty as he continued to scan around. Paranoia welled up. "Monty!" She hissed. "Watch the stairs!"

Montmorency replied with a nod, leaving the hole to crouch at the head of the stairs with her rifle ready.

"Come on, come on," Yar muttered. "Where are – there!"

Siesta easily spotted the final mercenary, sprinting for his life back the way he had advanced with his comrades. She fired at the same moment as Uncle Yar, and the mercenary fell.

The Freedom stalker relaxed his grip on the Dragunov. "Well," he breathed. "Since that's done..."

"Yeah, sure," Siesta grunted, obviously disgruntled. "Wanna explain to me what exactly what hell this was all about?"

"Right," Uncle Yar began in a drawl. "Last week sometime I was here in this village just poking around, minding my own business, when that squad of mercs decided to show up. Their leader was yapping away on his PDA about a central lab in Pripyat, and an urgent order or something. I tried to stay hidden away, but I stepped on a freaking branch, so I grabbed my rifle and legged it out of there while they took shots at me. I figured they'd come for me eventually. The price we pay for eavesdropping these days I guess."

Siesta stared at him incredulously. "How did you even know they were going to come through here?"

Yar shrugged. "I studied their patrols. They're the ones guarding the geek's bunker. They come through here twice a day. Well, they did anyway."

Siesta was still less than convinced that this had been necessary. "You're in Freedom," she pointed out. "Why didn't you just go to your commanding officer?"

"What's the point in getting the mercs pissed at Freedom again?" Uncle Yar asked rhetorically. "We've already had one war with them. I guess this was a personal matter."

Siesta pulled off her helmet and ran a hand through her greasy hair. That shower was sounding more appealing by the minute. She could scarcely remember her last one. "Well thanks for the heads up anyway," she grumbled. Looking to Montmorency, she rolled her eyes. "Monty, you can stop covering the stairs."

Montmorency started, before standing. "Oh... right, I, uh... right."

"We should head back," Uncle Yar advised. "I'm sure somebody somewhere heard that."

"We'll catch up," Siesta reassured, casting another glance towards Montmorency. "I wanna take care of something first."

Uncle Yar presented Siesta with a roll of banknotes. "Alright. Here's your payment then."

After Siesta accepted the money the trio left the attic and Uncle Yar split off outside the front door. Siesta motioned for Montmorency to follow as they advanced into the killing field.

"Where are we going?" Montmorency asked, apprehensive. "I don't mean to sound like I'm whining... but I'm not particularly comfortable here."

"This'll only take a minute," Siesta reassured. "We're going to find you something that's better than an SKS." She gave the blonde a wry glance. "Unless you've become attached to it. In that case, I understand."

"Attached," Montmorency scoffed. "How could I? It's just a bit of wood and steel."

"It happens."

They roved amongst the dead, Montmorency's apprehension growing all the while. She had seen enough dead bodies to become desensitized to the sight, but she still didn't like being around them in any sense of the word.

Siesta picked at one mercenary, and promptly disregarded the MP5. Montmorency watched as her senior stalker moved on to the next body, surprised at the nonchalance she displayed when picking through the belongings of the deceased. Siesta came up with a rifle and held it out for Montmorency to take. "Here, check it out, and be careful. It's still loaded."

Montmorency accepted the HK33 after slinging up her Simonov. It was remarkably similar to Siesta's rifle, although the slightly longer magazine had a gentle curve to it, and the furniture was black in color, rather than the olive green on the G3A3.

"It's like yours," Montmorency observed.

Siesta nodded. "Almost, different caliber." She snorted. "No bayonet, though, if that's something you like."

"Like?" Montmorency huffed. "I don't believe I've ever considered using a bayonet."

"That's good," Siesta said, assaulting the corpse once again. "I don't think you'd wanna get close enough to use one anyway. I used to have one for my Mosin." She came up with a webbing stuffed with magazines.

"You used to have a Mosin?"

Siesta remembered Montmorency hadn't been around long enough to know that. "Yeah, I used to rock the Mosin. I snapped the bayonet off in a snork one day. The freaking thing was practically rusted through. I never did get around to replacing it." She forced the webbing into Montmorency's arms. "There, that's enough of stuffing crap into your coat."

* * *

When Montmorency and Siesta returned to Yanov Station they found Kirche, Tabitha, and Louise gathered at the same table where they'd left them, although there was a noticeable change in atmosphere.

Kirche bridged her forehead with her hand, looking stressed beyond belief, Tabitha sat in silence, clasping a half empty bottle of water in her tiny hands, and Louise looked a little worse for wear with her head buried in her arms on the table.

Siesta took notice of Tabitha's new firearm. "PPS, huh?" She said. "Nice."

Kirche jolted, looking up. She hadn't even noticed them walk in. She heaved a sigh of relief. "Oh thank the Founder you're back."

"Don't thank the Founder for that," Siesta snorted. "Did something happen while we were gone?"

Kirche looked hesitant, wincing. "Well, no. Not really..."

Siesta was thoroughly unconvinced. "Kirche..."

"What?" Kirche said innocently.

Siesta loomed overhead, an unsettling smile on her face. "If something did happen while I was gone you'd better tell me right now, because if I find out what it was later you're going to find my boot ankle-deep in your asshole."

Kirche sighed, relenting. "Louise ate more of the brownies."

Montmorency gaped. "She ate more?"

"What the hell, Kirche?" Siesta growled, spreading her arms wide. "Why did you let her do that?"

"I didn't!" Kirche insisted. "I took my eyes off her for just a minute, and she ran off and got more herself! She got worse after that, and I had to bring her outside because she said she felt like throwing up, and she did, everywhere!"

"For fuck's sake!" Siesta groaned. "Kirche, I don't ask you for much, do I? Just that one thing! You had one job!"

Kirche crossed her arms in a huff. "Well I'm sorry, alright?"

Siesta pointed to Louise. "So what, is she like freaking dead now or something?"

"No she isn't dead!" Kirche shot back. "She fell asleep." She poked Louise to demonstrate, and the pink-haired girl muttered incoherently in response, swatting at Kirche blindly. "Well, I guess she isn't asleep, but she's been that way for a while now."

Siesta sighed, her lips drawing out into a line. "Alright, alright. It's getting late enough now, so let's go upstairs and find ourselves a room. Louise can sleep it off. She'll be fine in the morning."

Tabitha and Kirche both rose from their seats, but Louise remained. Siesta walked over and jostled the girl.

"Come on, sleepy-head," Siesta prodded. "Get up."

Louise grumbled out again. "Nooo," she whined. "Five more minutes."

"Louise, seriously," Siesta pressed. "Get up and walk or else I'm going to carry you."

"Carry me," was Louise's response to that.

Siesta caught the incredulous looks from the rest of her group, and accepted her defeat. "Fine, you asked for it." She removed Louise from her chair, carrying her in a bridal fashion.

Kirche snorted in amusement. "Well don't the newlyweds look cute."

"Oh shut up, Kirche. Leave my wife alone."

* * *

 _A/N: And so, we breeze straight into the next act for some Yanov adventures. Monty-chan and Tabby have gotten some new guns, Siesta's heard the whispers of the road to Pripyat, and Louise gets baked._

 _Louise inadvertently getting high was something I had planned from the very beginning, although originally it was meant to take place in the Army Warehouses. I suppose Yanov Station serves the purpose well enough._

 _Also, you'll notice I've added something new to the header. The actual date. This way, the subtle time jumps will be more obvious, but don't worry, I won't go skipping months at a time. Just as a small tidbit, Louise's first day in the Zone was on July 30th, 2012._

 _On a side note, you guys wouldn't believe how many times I've had to load up Call of Pripyat and Shadow of Chernobyl to get the layout of things right. I'm also completely aware that Yanov Station doesn't actually have any upper levels in the game. This is fiction, after all, so don't get too mad at me._

 _This doesn't apply to every chapter, but I often insert little references here and there for my own amusement. Nobody's seemed to comment on any of them yet, because most of them are pretty obscure anyway. An internet cookie to whoever picks up on the one in this chapter._

 _So in the area around Jupiter we'll have some new characters on top of the regular cast, the majority of them in-game NPC's of course. Uncle Yar, Grizzly, Torba, and the dreaded Magpie, though I doubt any of you remember the mentions of him during Humble Beginnings IV. That feels like a freaking millennium ago now._

 _But yeah, plenty of new locations, and plenty of new Zone adventures and some Halkeginia adventures to come as we work up to the preview I left you guys, which takes place near the end of the act. That'll lead us into act 4, which is currently planned to be titled 'Winter'._


	27. The Road to Pripyat II

_The Road to Pripyat II_

 _Yanov Station_

 _September 6th, 2012_

 _07:19_

When Louise awoke the next morning there was a moment where she firmly believed she was waking up in her own room at the Valliére estate. When she discovered that certainly wasn't the case, she had the feeling that this was only the beginning of another hateful day.

Louise was in the middle of the room on the floor, amongst a sea of vacant sleeping bags. There wasn't much to the room. They had a window they could actually see through this time, some empty shelves, a desk with an accompanying chair, and some peeling wallpaper. Unluckily, there weren't any bunks in the rooms upstairs, but being that they were meant to be offices that didn't come as a big surprise.

But what did come as a surprise was the fact that she was the room's sole occupant. Siesta had slept on her left and Tabitha on her right. Louise theorized that she might have just slept in. Yesterday had been a long day, after all.

Then, she remembered. The brownies.

Louise managed to remember some of the things she had said and done during her unintentional high, and she just cringed. She couldn't decide what was the most embarrassing. It seemed to be a tie between holding Kirche's hand and vomiting her guts out.

Despite all of that, Louise was sure that she had just experienced one of the best sleeps she'd had in a long time. She felt strangely comfortable in her warm cocoon, so her subsequent decision was to go back to sleep. Louise rested her arms up above her head, and closed her eyes.

A few minutes later, Louise was still awake. It seemed sleep wouldn't be coming back to her. She could hear a pair of footsteps thumping down the hallway, and worryingly, they halted right outside. Louise stiffened, keeping her eyes closed. She moved her arm underneath the bundled up coat she was using as a pillow, and found her pistol. Her fingers wrapped around the grip.

She felt a little peeved by this point. How could the others leave her sleeping alone when anybody could just walk in here?

The door opened. "Oh good, she's still asleep," Siesta said. Louise immediately relaxed, and decided to go another route. She was just going to ignore Siesta and whoever else it was she had brought.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Kirche asked. Strangely, there was also a touch of laughter in her voice.

"Yeah, yeah. It'll be fine," Siesta replied. Louise could almost picture the former maid flapping her hand in a dismissive manner.

Louise knew they were standing right over her now. She felt the slightest brush against her sleeping bag.

And then, Siesta spoke again in a sing-song voice. "Louise! Time to get up."

Louise's eyes split open without any signs of sleepiness. She stared up at Siesta's mischievous face. "What do you want?"

Siesta didn't say anything, and Kirche just stood, watching with growing interest. Eventually, after a short staring contest, Siesta nodded down towards Louise's chest. Confused, Louise craned her head to look.

On her sleeping bag, scurrying about, was a coin-sized spider.

Louise promptly let out an ear-piercing scream as she frantically batted the arachnid away. She squirmed out of her sleeping bag and shot to her feet. The only thing that covered her lower half was a pair of shorts. Whirling on Kirche and Siesta, Louise found that the two women were now doubled over in roaring laughter.

"What the hell is wrong with you two!?" Louise shrieked, enraged.

"You..." Kirche heaved, barely able to control herself. "The best faces! You always make the best faces!"

"God... you two idiots are insufferable!" Louise stomped towards the door, intent on getting away from these two as quickly as possible.

"Whoa, whoa, hey," Siesta said, grabbing Louise by her shoulder. Her laughter had quickly drifted off, falling to a broad smirk. The pink-haired girl stopped, and glared. "Look at yourself. Put on some pants before you go downstairs."

Louise's face reddened, and she deflated. "Shut up." She turned away and stalked back to where her gear was stowed.

Siesta watched the girl as began the chore of putting on her pants. "So, did you have fun yesterday?"

Louise paused. She looked over her shoulder. "It... well it was certainly an experience."

"What was it like?" Kirche asked, genuinely interested.

"Well," Louise began, working on her socks. "Everything that was even a little funny was absolutely hilarious, and everything that was stupid was even more hilarious."

Siesta snorted. "Sounds about right. Wanna do it again?"

"No!" Louise insisted. "Not even a little bit. It was weird! I said and did some very strange things."

"Like holding my hand?" Kirche offered.

Louise pursed her lips. "Don't go around telling everybody that."

Siesta shrugged. "She already told everybody."

Hanging her head, Louise groaned. Finished with her socks she went for her boots, and then her coat.

"What?" Kirche asked innocently. "It's not a big deal."

Louise shrugged the coat on. "No, I suppose not, but it's still weird. I –" She let out a tiny noise of fright, jumping back.

"What is it?" Kirche asked, eyebrow raised.

"That spider's over here now," Louise announced.

"It's just a spider," Siesta chided.

Louise glared. "But I hate spiders."

"People shoot at us," Siesta pointed out. "You shouldn't be scared of spiders."

"I'm not scared of spiders," Louise assured her. "I just hate them. They're disgusting. We have to get rid of this thing. I won't be able to fall asleep tonight if I know it's creeping around this room somewhere."

"Oh forget the spider and come on," Siesta urged excitedly. "Grab your shit. We're going to get showers!"

* * *

"So I turn this, and the water comes out?" Louise asked.

Siesta nodded. "Yeah."

Louise eyed her senior stalker. The stall they were in felt a little cramped, but it stood to reason that it also wasn't meant for two people. "How?" She asked.

"I don't know how this shit works, honestly," Siesta said. "Never really bothered to ask anybody."

"Siesta!" Kirche called from the next stall. "Did you get lost in there? You've got to show me how this works too."

"Just wait, Kirche!" Siesta called back. "Have some patience!"

Kirche's face peeked over the wall dividing the stalls. "I've always wondered why patience had to be a virtue. Why couldn't hurry up be a virtue?"

Siesta pointed. "Kirche I will punch you in your pretty little face."

"You think I'm pretty?"

Siesta promptly swatted at the Germanian's head, who ducked, laughing. "Kirche I'm just as excited as you to get clean for once, but hold the fuck on!"

Kirche didn't respond, but she continued chuckling from beyond the metal wall.

"So anyway," Siesta continued. "The one on the right is the cold water, and the one on the left is the hot water. I was talking to Hawaiian and he said the water heater was pretty good, so we should be safe to use as much as we need to."

Confused, Louise decided to address something. She pointed to the left knob. "This makes the water hot?" Siesta nodded. "That's brilliant, actually," Louise remarked.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool." Siesta stepped out of the showerhead's area of effect, placing a hand down on a knob. "You just turn it like this." She gave the knob a swift turn open and closed. The showerhead let out a split-second jet of water, right on top of Louise's head.

Louise squealed, stepping back. "Siesta!" She wiped at her hair. "Don't be such a damn child!"

Siesta hooted with laughter, drawing Kirche's head up over the wall again. "Did I just miss something funny?" The Germanian asked.

"You did!" Siesta chirped. "I sprayed Louise with water."

Kirche laughed. "I wish you would have warned me beforehand. I'm sorry I missed that one." She returned to the confines of her own stall.

Siesta shrugged. "It was a spur of the moment thing." She looked to Louise, who seethed annoyance. "Louise, relax. You're going to get wet anyway."

"But I'm still dressed!" Louise pointed out.

"Then get un-dressed."

"I will when you leave!" Louise pointed. "I'm fairly certain I can operate this thing now, so go!"

"Fine, fine," Siesta relented, exiting the stall. Louise had nearly closed the door when Siesta pushed it open again. "Oh, wait!"

"Siesta!"

"I forgot something," Siesta said. She handed Louise a small bar, and an opaque plastic bottle. "I got this stuff from Hawaiian. Soap, and this other stuff. Put that in your hair."

Louise's face curdled. "Put it in my hair?"

Siesta nodded. "Yeah. Your hair." With that, Siesta left Louise alone.

Securing the door, Louise set the soap and shampoo down and got to undressing. She could hear Siesta explaining the same things she'd just heard to Kirche next door, although it was much more condensed. Kirche had already heard everything Siesta had said to Louise anyway.

Louise felt a little vulnerable right now, getting undressed in a place like this. Nobody would see her, she was sure. Montmorency and Tabitha guarding the door would make sure of that. She stripped off her shirt, placing it down atop her folded coat. Next came the boots, socks, pants, and then finally, the shorts. Rather than leave her clothes in here where she was sure they'd also get a soaking, Louise slid them outside through the foot of space the door allowed at the floor.

But her holstered pistol remained inside the stall with her, hanging from the hook on the door. Just in case. She wondered, was that a paranoid thing to do? If she ever got back to Tristain, would she still feel naked without a gun?

Louise dismissed those thoughts. Fully nude, her feet slapped against the tiling as she advanced on the shower controls. She turned the right knob, and the shower sputtered to life almost instantly. The water that rained down was freezing.

Frantically, Louise tried to keep herself out of the shower's stream as she gave the left knob a great twist.

It didn't take long for the water to warm up, and it quickly became apparent that it was now far too hot. She twisted the left knob back, trying to find a happy medium.

With the water at a comfortable temperature, Louise stepped into the danger zone and allowed herself to get completely drenched.

For the longest time, Louise simply stood beneath the water, thinking. She had thought that something like this would feel as if she were being cleansed of the things she had done up until now, but it simply only felt like she was getting wet.

Louise sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. When let down it only ended around her shoulders. She was sure Cattleya and Éléonore would both throw fits if they saw it like this now.

The other showers had already sprung to life, so Louise decided she had better skip the thinking and go right ahead into cleaning herself.

* * *

 _Albion_

 _20:31_

It was now the sixth day Matilda had been gone, which got Alexander worrying. He could only imagine how Tiffania felt.

Though, looking at her now, Alexander noted that Tiffania didn't look as worried as he thought. Her nose was deep within a book, which he supposed served as an appropriate enough distraction.

They still rented the same room at the inn, and Alexander continued performing the daily ritual of working at the local tavern. His money was gone just as fast as it came in. Food and rent put a big enough dent in it, not to mention the new shirt he'd bought, and the ridiculously large and floppy sunhat sitting on Tiffania's head.

Bored by lack of conversation, Alexander turned away from the window and to the elven girl sitting in the chair. "So what's that book about?" He asked.

If Tiffania were annoyed at her reading being interrupted, she didn't show it. "It's about a knight who saves a princess from a dragon," she replied happily.

How original, Alexander thought to himself, snorting. "Why do people write those kinds of stories? That kind of stuff actually happens here, doesn't it?"

Curious, Tiffania looked up from the book. "Don't they have these kinds of stories where you're from?"

"Sure, I guess," Alexander said. "There aren't any dragons in my world, though."

That took Tiffania by surprise. "No dragons? How strange."

"Nope. No dragons, no magic, no elves, and just one moon."

Tiffania had heard of there being no magic where Alexander was from already, but no elves either? Now it made sense to her why he was never scared of her. But just one moon? "One moon?" Tiffania said. "That sounds a little silly."

"Having two moons is what's silly," Alexander pointed out.

With that said, the door suddenly swung open. Tiffania started in her chair with a squeak, while Alexander's hand twitched for his pistol.

But it seemed his sidearm wouldn't be necessary, because it was Matilda standing in the doorway.

Tiffania shot up from her seat. "Matilda!" She cried.

Matilda didn't even seem to notice. She slogged into the room not unlike a zombie would, and nudged the door closed with her heel. As she moved for the bed, Alexander noted that she looked beat out beyond belief. Her clothes were covered in a film of dirt, and the dark circles under her eyes served to give her an aura of complete exhaustion.

Reaching the bed, Matilda let herself fall face-first.

Tiffania stared on. "...Matilda?"

"Are you alright?" Alexander added.

Matilda groaned, shifting. She stripped off her glasses, set them on the nightstand, and buried her head in a pillow. She sighed happily. "I missed you two," she mumbled out.

Alexander snorted. "You missed me too? What have you done with the real Matilda?"

The green-haired mage didn't seem to have it in her to laugh. "Tomorrow," she replied. "Sleep now." She didn't even bother to get underneath the covers.

Alexander and Tiffania both shared an incredulous glance. He thought it was a little early to go to sleep himself, but Alexander supposed he may as well set out his bedroll.

* * *

 _Yanov Station_

 _09:53_

Siesta approached the table where the rest of the girls were seated. Kirche and Montmorency chatted amiably, Tabitha listened on, and Louise feasted on a late breakfast of instant noodles.

It was a lot of instant noodles too. Siesta theorized that it had to be at least two packs. "Are you hungry or something?" She asked, stopping at the table's head.

Louise slurped back the noodles hanging from her mouth. "I am absolutely starving," she replied.

The showers earlier seemed to have been a resounding success. Everybody seemed at least a little relished the feeling of being clean for once, and she was sure everybody else was feeling a similar way. She had taken notice during her shower that her hair was growing out again. Soon enough it would need another trimming.

But she shrugged all of that off. "So check this out." Siesta held up her rifle by its foreend for everybody to see.

Tabitha looked, Kirche and Montmorency cut her conversation short, and Louise slurped back more noodles. They all stared on at the bayonet attached over the G3A3's barrel.

"Huh?" Siesta said in wake of the lack of responses. She gestured to her rifle. "Well? I bought it from Hawaiian."

"You've gotten a bayonet," Louise observed. "So... congratulations?"

Siesta huffed, frowning. "You guys aren't any fun. I mean, come on. You never know when you'll need a good snork- sticker."

Montmorency stared on, remembering exactly what Siesta had said yesterday in regards to bayonets. To her it seemed rather hypocritical for Siesta to tell her that she'd rather not have to use a bayonet, and to go and buy one herself.

"It looks weird," Kirche pointed out. "I think you put it on wrong."

Siesta eyed over the arrangement. "...No I didn't."

"Isn't it upside-down? I thought bayonets went on the bottom."

Siesta rolled her eyes. "They go on top on this rifle. The bayonet on Tabitha's Mosin was on the side, wasn't it?"

"Well I suppose," Kirche grumbled.

The station doors swung open and a group of Freedom stalkers strolled in. Siesta only gave them a cursory glance at first, but she quickly found herself doing a double-take.

Because walking amongst the group of three, dressed in Freedom colors, was Magpie. Siesta was sure of it. She rarely forgot a face, especially when it was somebody like him.

Siesta stared intently, her eyes involuntarily narrowing into hateful slits. Magpie took notice of her as well, and stopped, surprised. He stared back for only a moment before continuing on his way, but Siesta's eyes didn't leave him until he had disappeared into Freedom's side of the station.

She remembered Magpie well enough from his time in Zaton. He had abandoned Gonta and his hunters during a dangerous hunt, making off with all of their gear in the process. Crab had gotten hurt because of that, bad.

Crab had recovered from that, only to be claimed by a bandit raid on the Shevchenko. That wasn't the point, however.

Besides that, Siesta specifically remembered the time Magpie had shamelessly delivered an open-palmed slap to her rear while she was standing at the Skadovsk's bar, but she supposed the swift fist to the face and the foot to the testicles he received afterward made up for that.

Siesta believed that she didn't hate very many people, but despite the satisfying revenge she had gotten, Magpie was somebody she absolutely loathed. She could only wonder how he had managed to worm his way into the ranks of Freedom. Did he think that would protect him? Siesta knew with all her heart that if Magpie ever came near her or any of her friends with lecherous intent he would find himself on the bad end of a muzzle, Freedom or not.

Montmorency had taken notice of the killing aura surrounding the former maid. "What was that about?" She asked.

Siesta decided to finally take a seat at the table. "That was Magpie," she answered lowly.

The blonde hadn't a sweet clue who that was. "Who or what is a Magpie?"

"A magpie is a bird," Kirche pointed out.

"Well I know that!" Montmorency shot back.

Louise decided to speak up after another mouthful of noodles found its way down her throat. "I remember that name. He was that person who abandoned the hunters in Zaton, right?"

Siesta nodded slowly. "Yeah. Not only that."

"Oh?" Louise quirked an eyebrow. "What else did he do?"

"He slapped my ass this one time."

Louise stopped, and Kirche found herself choking on the soda she'd been drinking. "And you let him get away with that?" Kirche asked in disbelief.

"No," Siesta answered. "He didn't get away with it at all. I kicked his ass."

Kirche laughed. "You did?"

"Well, not his ass," Siesta corrected. "His balls, actually."

Kirche laughed even louder, Montmorency snorted, Tabitha raised her brow slightly, and surprisingly, Louise grinned.

"I almost wish I could have seen that," Louise remarked, going back to her noodles.

Siesta snorted. "It was pretty great. The entire bar was laughing at him while I stomped away all pissed off."

"I'm surprised he didn't try to get back at you for that," Montmorency said.

"He left Zaton a few days after that," Siesta explained. "So I guess he didn't get the chance. If he tries anything now, I'll kill him."

Montmorency winced. "That's... a little extreme, isn't it?"

Siesta thought to herself, that things could get a little interesting around here. She stared back to Montmorency evenly. "Not really, no."

* * *

 _Albion_

 _12:13_

Matilda had slept through the night, and almost till noon. Having not slept for over thirty-six hours by her estimate, she felt that she had soundly earned it. She had left Tiffania upstairs to get cleaned up, and now she waited in the inn's tavern for the innkeeper's daughter to return with a cup of tea.

And she did, smiling brightly. "Here you go," the girl said, setting the cup down on the bar top. "Sorry about the wait."

Matilda waved her off. "Oh it's fine." She gingerly grasped the cup in her hands, and turned to make her way to a table. Doing so, she nearly dropped the cup out of fright. Alexander had somehow crept up on her, standing only feet away. Matilda let out a deep breath, a hand over her racing heart. "For the love of God, Alexander. Are you trying to send me to an early grave?" She could hear the innkeeper's daughter giggling behind.

"Yeah," Alexander drawled flatly. "We gotta talk."

That surprised Matilda. "About?"

Alexander motioned with his head. "Let's go sit down."

As the man stalked towards a lonely table in the corner, Matilda could hear the girl behind the bar make a noise of concern. She glanced over her shoulder.

"I hope your lover isn't upset with you," the girl said innocently.

Matilda's breath hitched. "He's not my lover!" She insisted quietly. "I barely even know the man." She could hear the bargirl giggling again as she followed after Alexander.

Alexander spoke as soon as the mage was settled. "So a few things happened while you were gone."

Matilda sipped from her tea. "I'd imagine so. Nothing terrible, I hope."

"Well I saw Tiffania's ears," Alexander said quietly. Nobody else was in the lowest level of the inn other than the girl behind the bar, but she was safely on the other side of the room. Nevertheless, he had to be sure nobody else would overhear.

Matilda froze. "...You did?"

Alexander nodded. "Don't freak out or anything. I can keep a secret. I don't really get what the big deal is anyway."

"How could you not?" Matilda asked, confused.

"There aren't any elves in my world."

"Oh..." Matilda said, blindsided. "Really?"

"Yes, really," Alexander confirmed. "Why are people scared of elves anyway?"

"Well, in short, they're very powerful, and they hate humans," Matilda explained quietly. "They've been our enemy for thousands of years. There have been crusades against them before, but they've always failed."

Alexander furrowed his brow in thought. "If they're so powerful and hate you all so much, then why don't they just invade?" He asked.

Matilda rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Well I don't know. It's not like I've had the chance to ask them."

"Point," Alexander conceded. He sighed. "So... how am I supposed to say this now..."

"What is it?" Matilda asked, concerned. "Did something bad happen?"

"I think I should be the one asking you that," Alexander pointed out. "You looked pretty dragged out when you walked in last night."

"I was," Matilda confirmed. She sipped at her tea again, finding it had cooled pleasantly.

"I know, Matilda."

Matilda furrowed her brow. "You know what?"

"I know," Alexander repeated.

"And again, I ask, know what?"

Alexander grunted and leaned forward. "I know you went off to steal stuff."

Matilda's face broke into a gape. She glanced around frantically. "Don't just come out and say that!" She hissed, glaring. "What if somebody heard?"

"Well I was trying to be discreet about it," Alexander shot back, crossing his arms. "But you weren't catching on."

Matilda sighed, moved her nearly finished tea out of the way, and slumped forward onto the table with her head in her arms. "So what now?" She muttered without looking up. "Are you going to try and turn me in?"

"No," Alexander answered. He had no doubts that saying yes would have been the wrong answer to that question. Matilda would likely do anything to keep her thieving under wraps, and if that meant silencing him... Alexander didn't want to find out first hand. "It's not really my concern how you make money. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't ever stolen something in my life."

Matilda's response was an incoherent grumble in her arms.

"Tiff knows too," Alexander added.

Matilda shot up, eyes wide. Her face quickly turned dark. "What? Did you tell her? Why would –"

Alexander held up his hand to stop her. "I didn't tell her. She was actually the one who told me."

Looking thoroughly deflated, Matilda sank back into her seat and delivered a vacant stare past Alexander. She looked a little devastated, he noted. "She knows..." Matilda said quietly. "How? How did she find out?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask her." Alexander thought for a moment. Maybe he should have asked. "I guess she just put two and two together?"

Matilda supposed she'd just have to ask the elven girl herself. She pulled off her glasses, and rubbed her forehead tiredly. "God... what am I supposed to do now? She must hate me for this..."

Alexander scoffed. "She doesn't hate you at all. She doesn't exactly approve, but she understands why."

That seemed to relieve Matilda, but only a little.

"So there's something else," Alexander continued.

"Oh, of course," Matilda groaned loudly. "There's something else, is there? What else could have happened while I was gone?"

"I ran into those mages we met the day you left," Alexander said.

"Oh them," Matilda said, uninterested. "Did they deliver my message? I would have come by and told you myself but I was in a bit of a rush."

"Yeah that happened," Alexander said dismissively. "But I got to talking to them about Louise. They went to the Academy together in Tristain."

Matilda reluctantly tended to her tea again. "Really? Small world, I suppose."

"No kidding," Alexander snorted. "They told me about her oldest sister that works in Tristain."

"Her oldest sister..." Matilda had to think for a moment. "Éléonore de la Valliére I believe? I'm fairly certain she works at the Royal Magic Research Institute in Tristania."

"So I've heard," Alexander said. "You certainly know your stuff."

Matilda shrugged. "You learn a lot of things being the secretary at the Academy." It was half true. Though, her idea of breaking into the Royal Magic Research Institute to poke around hadn't gotten past the planning phase.

"Right," Alexander snorted. "But anyway, I got a good idea of where someone from Louise's family is. I've been thinking about going there and telling her that her sister might be still alive."

Matilda took a full few seconds to process that. "But... we can't just up and go to Tristain! We're not even on the same island!"

"We're not? Oh. Well then." That was a bit of useful information. It only served to remind Alexander of how little he knew about this place. "Either way, you don't need to come with me. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

Matilda wasn't the type to outright say that she didn't want him to go, but Alexander could see a little of it on her face. She set her glasses back on her nose, and downed the remainder of the now cold tea. "Please, take some time to think it over before you decide to leave."

Alexander was a little taken aback. "Oh, uh... alright. It's not like I'm on a time limit or anything."

Matilda stood, leaving the empty cup. "Now, in light of what you've told me, I have to go speak with Tiffania." She sighed. "I was honestly hoping I'd never have this conversation with her."

Alexander didn't think it was that big of a deal. He chuckled. "Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fine."

Matilda frowned deeply. "It won't. Tiffania is all I have left in this world."

"Seriously, Matilda." Alexander rolled his eyes. "It'll be fine."

"Well we'll have to wait and see I suppose," Matilda said, unconvinced. "So, you'll stay for now?"

Alexander shrugged. "Yeah, sure. For now." As he watched Matilda leave, he wondered why she would insist on him saying. It didn't seem like Matilda or Tiffania had many friends. He was probably one of the first in a long time. If he played his cards right, he thought he might not royally screw this up.

That, or he'd look like a complete jackass.

* * *

 _A/N: I'm sorry guys, but this chapter is pretty damn short. In fact, when I first finished it there were only about 3500 words. Yikes. I don't know how it turned out like that. Sometimes when you plan things out on paper, they don't always turn out how you expected. Usually the chapters end up much longer than I plan, but oh well. I promise the next chapter will be much longer. I ended up extending the first scene in the office/bedroom, and I added that shower scene afterward._

 _Just wait. I'll probably break that. Anyway..._

 _Not much actually happened in this chapter, so I apologize for that._

 _But things will happen in Yanov! Just you wait guys! Just you wait!_

 _The reference 'you had one job, Kirche', wasn't really it, but I suppose that counts as one. Like I said, it was pretty obscure, and that wasn't really that obscure. I'll tell you what it is if you really want to know, but it's not really that interesting. There isn't a reference in this chapter, unless I made one accidentally, which in that case it wouldn't actually be a reference anyway._

 _I hope the 'patience is a virtue' thing didn't feel too out of place. The Brimiric Faith is pretty similar to Roman Catholicism, so I guess it could fit. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I'll change it out. I haven't read the LN's in a long time, but perusing the back to basics forum on Spacebattles makes things easier sometimes. But I guess saying that patience is a virtue doesn't necessarily have to carry a religious connotation with it. Eh, whatever._

 _Also, when Siesta first saw Magpie/Flint I humorously pictured it in my head as a sort of 'Kill Bill' moment. If you've seen that movie, you'll probably know what I mean. Afterward I started thinking about it as a 'dramatic chipmunk' moment, and that got me laughing a little._

 _Anyway, I'll put a bit of pressure on getting the next chapter soon. Shit's gonna go down._

 _Not much else to say about this chapter. So I'll see you next time._


	28. The Road to Pripyat III

_The Road to Pripyat III_

 _Yanov Station_

 _September 12th, 2012_

 _13:41_

Louise realized that this was now the seventh day she had been in the area around the Jupiter Plant. She tended not to keep track of the days anymore, but it seemed the stalkers had a current calendar posted up near the bar. Laid out on paper, this world's strange calendar was much easier to understand.

The past week had been filled with nothing substantial. Other than unintentionally getting herself high and discovering the wonderful invention known as a shower, Louise had found herself settling into the day-to-day routine of anomaly diving and mutant slaying.

Louise didn't mind, to a point. It was a simple existence. The big jobs didn't seem to be springing up like they had in Zaton, and she was thankful for that. Doing big jobs usually came with a whole lot trouble, and shooting.

But even she knew first-hand that the simple things could morph into hellish scenarios.

Louise had finished her lunch about ten minutes ago. She gazed across the table, supporting her head with a hand while Tabitha sat silent, returning the stare. Next to her, Montmorency looked equally as bored. Siesta and Kirche had left to get some drinks a few minutes ago, but they hadn't returned. Looking across the station, Louise could see they were still busy chatting it up with Hawaiian. She sighed.

Her sights turned back on the Gallian. "So you really don't talk much, do you, Tabitha?" Louise asked, trying to stir up some conversation.

Tabitha's reply was simple and brusque as always. "No."

Montmorency watched, curious. To her knowledge, this was probably only the second or third time Louise and Tabitha had directly spoken to each other.

"Why?" Louise asked.

Tabitha's stare was unwavering. "I only speak when I have something to say."

Louise could mark that one down as being the longest sentence she'd ever heard Tabitha say. "Well I suppose that makes sense."

"You know, you didn't talk much either at the Academy, Louise," Montmorency pointed out, sipping on a soda. "Only if you were spoken to, really."

Louise found herself reminded that her own can was dreadfully empty. "Well you see, I spent most of my time silently observing everybody from afar while I tried to determine if they were all complete idiots or not."

Montmorency furrowed her brow and frowned, while Tabitha cocked her head.

"That's not to say I think that about all of you," Louise continued quickly, realizing the implications of what she'd just said. "I just don't really like people all that much."

Montmorency hummed. "I suppose I can't blame you for that..."

Louise looked back to Tabitha. "I never did think ill of you, mostly because you hadn't ever said two words to me." She tuned to Montmorency. "And all of that nastiness between us? I'm well and truly over that."

"Really?" Tabitha asked. Her voice was perpetually monotone, but Louise caught the hint that the blue-haired girl didn't particularly believe her.

"Yes, really," Louise assured her. "Having people shoot at you all the time certainly gives you a different perspective on things, doesn't it?"

Montmorency snorted playfully. "I've wondered. Do you just hate everything?"

Louise eyed her, smirking. "Why no, Montmorency. In fact, I can count all of the things I don't hate on one hand."

That got a laugh out of the blonde. Louise was sure that if Tabitha was even capable of such a feat, she'd at least smile.

The conversation drifted off. Neither Siesta nor Kirche seemed intent on returning to the table anytime soon. Louise bit back another sigh that threatened to surface. Today just seemed to be one of those days where nothing happened.

At least until about five minutes later, when Louise decided that she had best take that back.

Two stalkers were making a line straight for the table, looking all business. One was a short and wiry man, likely only a handful of inches taller than Montmorency. His face was thin, cleanly shaven with a crooked nose that looked to have been broken at some point. His brown fawn jacket was old, full of holes and tears like his blue jeans. He had a bullpup rifle slung over his shoulder, a model Louise had seen before, but was unfamiliar with.

The next man was the complete opposite. He had a bushy beard, was broad-shouldered, and looked entirely the part of an adult bear. The plate carrier he wore seemed to strain at the seams, although it was obvious that he wasn't exactly fat. He was an ox of a man. If Louise were to picture a lumberjack in her mind, he would have a similar appearance. His Kalashnikov reminded her of the one she had lost to the controller beneath the ranger station.

The burly man was the one to speak first. "Hey," he greeted, his voice deep and gruff. "Can we talk to you for a minute?"

Louise was a little suspicious. She obviously had no idea who these men were, and she almost didn't even want to know. The big man was giving her a good stare. Whether it was because of her eye color, or her scars, she had no idea. "And who might you be?"

"Oh. I'm Grizzly." Louise almost snorted out loud. What a fitting stalker name.

The smaller man spoke, his voice much lighter. "And I'm Torba. You're Louise, right?"

"I am," Louise acknowledged. She motioned to the other girls. "That's Tabitha, and that's Monty." Tabitha didn't say anything, but Montmorency did let out a very dismissive huff. Louise had said that Montmorency's actions at the Academy were forgiven, but having everybody call the blonde 'Monty' was her own little from of revenge. She knew how much Montmorency hated it. "So what is it you need?"

"We've been asking around, trying to round up a group of stalkers for a job," Grizzly explained.

So much for no big jobs getting them almost killed. "What kind of job?" Louise asked.

Torba crossed his arms and grunted. "The damn bandits took our friend Mitay hostage."

Louise didn't feel like she was in any position to accept or decline such a job of her own volition. Decisions within their small group usually went to a vote, or in some cases, boiled down to Siesta. She knew the former maid didn't consider herself the de facto leader, but Louise felt that Siesta's experience certainly qualified her for the position.

The pink-haired mage rose from her chair. "Just a moment," she announced. "I'll go and get the others."

* * *

With all of the girls assembled Grizzly and Torba were now free to pitch their idea, but before that some more brief introductions had been in order. Where Louise had refrained from commenting on Grizzly's name, Siesta had done the opposite and let out a loud laugh. Grizzly didn't seem to mind. He explained that he hadn't even chosen the name for himself, much like how Montmorency's stalker name had been given to her.

Siesta set her helmet on the table and lit a cigarette. "Alright, so what's up?"

Grizzly took a breath in anticipation for what was likely to be a long-winded explanation. He knew vaguely of Siesta from a few stories told by Uncle Yar. Apparently she was a dependable as they came, but a little eccentric. "Alright, so the bandits around these parts recently put their foot down and finally started demanding a cut of all the artifacts the stalkers bring in, but everybody told them to go take a hike, because the way we figure it, stalkers don't owe anybody anything."

"Damn right," Siesta said. "If they really want artifacts then they should go anomaly diving like the rest of us."

"No kidding," Torba concurred. "Freakin' assholes think they own the place."

Grizzly gruffly nodded his agreement and distaste. "So that seemed to be the end of it for a while, but a few days ago the bandits set up an ambush and took our friend Mitay hostage when he was out anomaly diving on his own. They're holding him down at the container warehouses, and now they're demanding both a ransom and a cut of the artifacts. We discussed giving in, but since that would mean that we're working for them we said screw that. We got a load of artifacts we were going to ransom off, but now we're going to sell them instead and hire a crew to go in and take the bandits out."

Instead of agreeing or disagreeing, Siesta snorted loudly. "So you came to a bunch of girls to help you?"

That caught Grizzly a little off guard. "Well... uh..."

"Siesta..." Louise said, glaring disapprovingly.

"Honestly?" Montmorency added.

Kirche crossed her arms, nodding. "Seriously! Just because we're women doesn't mean we can't –"

Siesta cut her off, holding up her hands in defence. "That was a joke! I was kidding! I do that sometimes! Jeez, do you really think I'd say that and mean it?"

The three girls hadn't realized that had been a comment made in jest at all. They subsequently piped down with a few grumbles.

Siesta turned back to a bewildered Grizzly. "So really, why are you coming to us? I'm sure there are plenty of other people willing to help. These four aren't that experienced, y'know."

"Well we went to Freedom and Duty, and they told us to get lost," Grizzly informed her. "Not really a big surprise there, but pretty much everyone else we asked refused. So far we only got two other guys. The payout won't be huge, though, because so many people are going."

"How much?" Siesta asked.

"Two-thousand each," Grizzly replied.

Siesta scrunched her nose. "Ten-thousand for the lot of us?" She looked to the other girls. "What do you guys think?" Tabitha wouldn't voice her opinion unless it was completely necessary, Siesta knew, but she was sure the others would have a few things to say.

"I'm not sure," Louise voiced.

"Me neither," Montmorency agreed.

Kirche pursed her lips. "If you're really asking us to go with you and fight the bandits, ten-thousand seems little cheap to me."

Grizzly sighed. "Yeah, I know."

"It's really all we can afford," Torba added.

Siesta gave Kirche a look, and switched to Tristainian. "What do you think, Kirche? You wanna do it?"

Grizzly and Torba were a little surprised at the sudden shift in language, but they didn't offer up any protest.

Now that she was asked, Kirche looked doubly unsure. "I... well, I don't know."

"Do you want to, Siesta?" Louise asked. "I seem to remember us leaving Zaton to avoid fighting a very large group of bandits."

Well, Louise had caught her there. "Yeah, but this is kind of different," Siesta said.

Louise wasn't convinced. "How, exactly?"

"They have their friend," Siesta pointed out, her tone serious. "What would you do if it was me captured by the bandits, getting the shit kicked out of me and getting raped all day?"

Louise felt herself stiffen. She knew exactly what she'd do. She would kill every single bandit she could find. After a moment's thought, Louise looked up, and nodded.

Siesta turned. "Kirche?"

Sighing, Kirche nodded. "I'll go."

"Tabitha?"

Tabitha nodded.

Montmorency, however, wasn't so easily convinced. "W-wait a minute! Shouldn't we discuss this further?"

"Why?" Siesta asked. "Do you want to sit out? Nobody's forcing you do go with us."

Deflating, Montmorency hadn't realized that was an option, and she still didn't think it was one. "Well, no, it's just..."

Siesta didn't wait for Montmorency to finish. She tuned to Grizzly. "Alright."

Grizzly looked surprised. "Wait – so, you're in?"

Siesta nodded. "Yeah."

Grizzly and Torba exchanged glances before the burly man continued. "Okay. We're probably going to storm the place at night, so there's plenty of time to prepare."

"Right," Siesta acknowledged. "Well we're not going anywhere, so just come grab us before you leave."

With that, the two men left, sauntering over to Duty's side of the station. Montmorency watched them leave, her stomach heavy.

Kirche noticed. "Are you alright?"

Montmorency frowned. "I just have a bad feeling..."

From nearby, Louise snorted. "When exactly was the last time you had a good feeling about anything?"

* * *

The sun was low in the sky when the girls assembled in the rail yard. Grizzly and Torba had brought the two other stalkers they'd mentioned. The first was Leva, donning a stalker suit not unlike the one Siesta wore and wielding a folding stock AK-74. The other was Mishka, a quiet, hooded man with an RPD machine gun leaning on his shoulder.

Grizzly had informed the group they were going to advance south along the train tracks. Now, they found themselves nearing in on an overpass with an abandoned section of train cars parked underneath.

Siesta couldn't help but notice the aura of apprehension rolling from Montmorency. She could tell easily enough that the others were nervous as well. Louise was tight-lipped, Kirche was looking a little jumpy, but Tabitha looked oddly nonplussed with the Sudaev in hand and the wrapped staff on her back.

"Hey," Siesta began, slowing her pace to walk next to Montmorency. "You doing alright?"

"I... I think so," the blonde answered, her gaze directed firmly downward. "I'm just so scared. What if we all get killed?"

Leva had something to say to that from ahead. "Then we won't have to deal with this shit anymore."

Montmorency sighed, trying her best to ignore that remark as she continued speaking to Siesta. "I don't like fighting," she said, her voice quiet. "I don't like having to hurt people."

Siesta shifted her rifle. "I don't really like it either, but it's just a part of life here, I guess." She decided to keep Montmorency's mind off it, for now. "How are the outer regions these days? I don't think I've asked you."

"You haven't," Montmorency confirmed. "They're... well it certainly isn't like this. I heard stalkers say that being out there is like a vacation compared to being around here. I can't help but agree with that now."

"It wasn't always so easy-going out there," Siesta pointed out. "I remember way back when if you wanted to get through the Garbage in one piece you'd have to sprint cover-to-cover to avoid the bandit's snipers. After Borov was killed they all kind of fell apart into wandering groups, other than the few assholes still holed up in the Dark Valley."

Montmorency thought on that for a moment. "You've been around, haven't you?"

Siesta emitted a drawn out 'mhm' as an answer. "I oftentimes wonder how I've managed to survive for this long."

Torba, listening in, looked over his shoulder. "I heard from some of the Freedom guys that you've been around a while."

"It'll be five years in October," Siesta revealed with a discontented grunt. "Man," she groused. "I'll soon be twenty-two."

"Damn," Grizzly remarked. "You're a real veteran, from the early days."

"It must have been great to be a stalker back then," Torba said dreamily. "Breaking through to places for the first time."

All Siesta had for that was a dismissive scoff. Being a stalker during the early days was not great. She felt it was quite the opposite, honestly.

"So you must have seen some crazy shit then," Torba continued, seemingly intent on picking Siesta's brain.

"We've all seen some crazy shit," Siesta answered.

"I hear that," Leva agreed.

Before Torba or Grizzly could continue to grill her, Siesta decided to pose a question to them. "So I hear you guys are trying to find a route into Pripyat."

"That's right," Grizzly answered. "You could call us a couple of adventurers. Where'd you hear about that?"

"From Uncle Yar."

Grizzly spared her an over-the-shoulder glance. "Hey, you should join in on it."

Siesta snorted. "I'm kind of on the fence about all of that. I still have nightmares about the first time stalkers broke through into Rostok."

"Oh shit," Torba remarked. "You were there for that?"

Under unrelenting insistence, Siesta found herself regaling Grizzly and Torba with the tale of when she had first found herself in the Rostok Factory. The news had spread about a gap in the anomalies, and a sizeable group of twenty stalkers had advanced through the Garbage intent on seeing what was on the other side.

She remembered stalkers of the day being excited about running into mountains of artifacts and retiring from their stalker lives for good, but when they had gotten into the factory there weren't any artifacts to be seen. The only thing to greet them had been hoards of mutants. Snorks that were years old, derived from some of the first soldiers posted in the Zone, and bloodsuckers that struck from every nook and cranny. During those times, the bloodsuckers were feared even more than they were now. It was a commonly held belief amongst stalkers that a bloodsucker was impossible to kill when it was invisible, but like many of the rumors that had spread through the Zone, there was little truth to it.

Back then there was no Freedom or Duty, but Siesta remembered many faces that had become part of the high command in both factions. Lukash had been there, who now commanded Freedom from the Army Warehouses, and Loki too, leading the detachment at Yanov Station. As for Duty, Siesta knew Petrenko had been there, as well as Skull, who had later been discharged for defying an order that had come directly from Voronin.

There had been regular stalkers in the ranks as well. Wolf had been there, who was wholly responsible for Siesta going along in the first place, and Fang and Ghost, a fact which Grizzly and Torba found some amazement in.

Though she had seen them from time to time, Siesta had barely known Fang or Ghost. They had their own tight-knit group they worked with and rarely mingled with the rest of the stalkers. Siesta couldn't remember either of them ever attempting to strike up a conversation with her, which seemed to have been the norm for almost every stalker to do once they'd seen her.

Fang and Ghost had disappeared long ago, like most of the stalkers she'd known at the time. Siesta couldn't fathom where they had ended up, but her best guess was dead.

While Siesta continued on conversing with Grizzly and Torba about her adventures during the early days, Kirche sidled up next to Louise. "How are you holding up?" She asked the Tristainian.

They moved into the shadow beneath the overpass. The abandoned rail cars seemed to be plagued with an anomaly that glowed soft blue and sparked with electricity as it zoomed back and forth through the interior. The light cast moving shadows on the ground through the windows. The entire group wisely gave the train cars a wide berth. "I'm scared, Kirche," Louise answered.

Kirche shifted her Kalashnikov into a fresh grip. "You don't look like it," she pointed out.

Louise eyed the Germanian. "You do," she observed.

"Thanks," Kirche snorted sarcastically. "I just don't want to die," she firmly added.

"Kirche, I don't think any of us want to die." Louise kept her eyes ahead to the other members of the group. "I can't ever imagine being like Siesta one day."

Kirche looked to the stalker in question. "What do you mean?" She asked.

Louise pointed. "Well look at her now." She said like it was obvious. Siesta was laughing about something with Grizzly and Leva. "She knows well enough that she could die, or any of us could die, but you wouldn't think so by the way she acts." She looked to Kirche, concerned. "Do you think it could really get to the point where getting in a gunfight isn't something to be afraid of anymore, but just a chore?"

Kirche took a moment to think about that. "No," she finally said. "There's no way that's possible."

Louise didn't know if she could agree. She idly flipped the M4A1's selector through its positions over and over. "I wish I could just go back... I'd be fine with being a failure and being called Zero all of the time. I think I'd relish in it, honestly."

That struck a sensitive spot in Kirche. Louise rarely brought up times before the Zone anymore, but Kirche always grew a little apprehensive when she did. "Louise..."

"You're not the only one who used to call me that, you know. Even my sister, Éléonore did."

Kirche was taken by surprise. "...She did?"

Louise nodded. "I told her about how I was bullied at school." Kirche winced, looking away. "And what I was called. She just told me to grow up, and started calling me Zero too. I always felt like she hated me."

The Germanian wished she could sympathize with the pink-haired girl. Bullied at school, and tortured at home. She theorized it must have been quite the unhappy existence. "I'm sure your sister didn't hate you."

"No, I suppose not," Louise said tiredly. "But I know there was some animosity. Before I enrolled at the academy mother put Éléonore in charge of my early magic lessons. Éléonore was already triangle class at the time – she's a bloody genius for God's sake – and I think mother put part of the blame on her for my failures." Her lips drew into a thin line. "I know it got to her. She took it all out on me."

The only scenery around was the rolling hills and the occasional tree. Kirche didn't know how far away the container warehouses were, but she had the sneaking suspicion it wasn't going to be a short walk. "But did you ever really wonder why?" Kirche asked, drawing Louise's gaze. "Like, just why your magic wouldn't work?"

"Did I ever wonder?" Louise scoffed, shaking her head. "Kirche, it's all I ever thought about. It consumed me." She paused, looking down, and then up again. Her voice was quiet when she spoke again. "I don't think about it much anymore, though."

"Why not?"

"Well what does it matter?" Louise countered, shrugging in emphasis. "I don't have a wand, but I suppose I can see how the occasional explosion would come in handy from time to time."

Kirche couldn't deny that. "But what if we ever get back?"

Louise stared ahead. "I still don't think it's going to matter, even then," she said lowly. "I'll be far more concerned with sleeping in an actual bed, and getting drunk off my arse every night."

Kirche found it in herself to laugh. "You're starting to sound like Siesta."

"Don't remind me."

"But if none of this ever happened to us, we wouldn't be friends," Kirche pointed out. "And Siesta would be stuck here all by herself."

Louise supposed no, she wouldn't be friends with Kirche. They'd probably still be at each other's throats. "Siesta doesn't need us," she said. "She could survive just fine on her own."

Kirche didn't agree. "No, I think that in a way, she does need us."

Louise didn't get the chance to ask Kirche to clarify, because Montmorency spoke up from nearby. "I'm not so entirely sure that Siesta would be here if Louise had never attempted the summoning spell," the blonde said.

"What do you mean by that?" Louise asked, furrowing her brow. She never liked having the repercussions of her most phenomenal screw-up brought into conversation.

"Haven't you ever noticed that the times here and in Halkeginia don't match up at all?" Montmorency asked.

"Not really," Kirche said.

"Well I mean, in Halkeginia, I was only missing for nine days according to Tabitha," Montmorency continued. The blue- haired Gallian nodded her confirmation from nearby. "But when I met her in Rostok, I had been in the Zone for twenty-one days."

Louise and Kirche both shared a confused glance. They both decided that no, it didn't match up at all, and yes, it was very weird. "Is there any particular reason why you didn't bring this up before?" Louise asked.

Montmorency's face reddened a little. She didn't know how to bring up something like that. "I just... uh, I was still thinking on it for a while. What really got me going was when we were looking at the calendar in Yanov Station and Louise pointed out what day was her first day in the Zone was, because that was my first day in the Zone too, but it had been a few days after Louise disappeared when I did, so that didn't make sense to me at all." She took a breath, almost forgetting to breathe. "What if Siesta was actually a maid at the Academy the same time we were going there, and somehow she was just sent to the Zone four years before us instead of at the same time."

Louise was silent in deep thought, as was Kirche. The Germanian broke out of it first, however. "That's a little insane, Monmon," Kirche remarked. "You've done too much thinking."

"I don't think I have," Montmorency insisted. "I think that's exactly how it happened."

"There's an easy way to find out for sure," Louise pointed out, feeling it was glaringly obvious.

"Such as?" Kirche asked.

"Well, we just ask Siesta what Halkeginian year she's from, right?" Louise said. "We're from 6242, and if Monty's wrong then Siesta would be from 6238."

Montmorency frowned. It had seemed that in the beginning Louise and Tabitha were the only ones to call her by her full name, but now the pink-haired girl was succumbing to the 'Monty' disease as well. Louise didn't even look like she realized she had said it. "Then let's ask her," Montmorency offered up.

Looking ahead, Louise noticed they were closing in on a small station. A steep bank had been rising steadily on their left, and nestled at the bottom was a small stationhouse set against a sheer backdrop of concrete. Far ahead, the tracks continued on into a dark underground tunnel. Neither location was particularly inviting.

But off to their right was something entirely different. About a mile away, beyond a shallow valley filled with ponds and withering shrubs, stood the shape of the container warehouses against the darkening sky. They were almost there, made especially evident by the fact that the group was veering away from the tracks and in that direction.

"Yes, we will ask her," Louise decided, her gaze locked straight ahead. "But now isn't the time."

* * *

The container warehouses had changed hands a few times over the past few months, according to Torba. It had once been a stalker outpost, much like Yanov Station, but it had changed hands over to several rivaling gangs of bandits in recent times.

Louise had always thought all of the bandits were on the same side, but Grizzly pointed out that the bandits occupying the Jupiter Plant had some beef with the bandits at the container warehouses. Louise wasn't completely sure what meat had to do with anything, but she didn't bother asking for fear of looking like a complete dunce.

Besides, it wasn't difficult to figure out that there must have been a disagreement between the two groups.

The sun had fallen beneath the horizon and darkness was spreading like a plague. Despite that, the container warehouses seemed to be lit up rather well. There were tall wooden poles looming high, their ancient sodium bulbs flickering with a warm yellow glow. They were supplemented by strings of small white lights that draped the gaps between the hulking shipping containers, highlighting the deadly maze the group would be forced to navigate.

The maze the orange and blue containers inadvertently created was daunting, and would no doubt become a fierce close-quarters battleground. The containers were stacked low and high in a seemingly random assortment, with some stacks reaching upwards of three layers tall.

On the left side of the compound was a large warehouse, with what appeared to be a glowing campfire somewhere inside. The corrugated metal sheeting that made up the walls had mostly fallen away in sections, giving the structure a skeletal appearance.

The actual buildings were in the back. Grizzly and Torba explained that they had staked out the place already, and it seemed that Mitay was being held in the garages. The entire compound was surrounded with a barbed wire fence, and near the entrance there were a handful of posted sentries standing idle near the small gatehouse.

The stalkers found themselves frighteningly close to the container warehouses. They huddled in the ditch at the side of the main road, right across from the path that led to the entrance. The darkness and brush concealed them for now.

Mishka spoke up for the first time since leaving Yanov Station. His voice was low and carried an edge of disgruntlement. "They've got the place lit up like they don't even give a shit."

Grizzly scoffed in agreement. "Freaking bandits," he muttered.

Siesta was at his side. "How many do you think are in there?"

"Roundabout twenty," Grizzly answered. "But we can't be sure. Lots of them come and go."

"Nine versus twenty?" Siesta's face seemed to cave in on itself with displeasure. "Not the best odds."

Torba agreed wholeheartedly. "Definitely not my favorite," he said. "Never was much of a gambler. We'll have to take them by surprise to even it out."

Grizzly pointed towards the warehouse. "We could hook around on the left there and ambush whoever's at the campfire. That'll hopefully put a nice dent in their numbers. We spotted a way through the fence there yesterday." He turned to Mishka. "We'll get you to stay here. Set up your machine gun and smoke those guys at the front when we give the signal. I'm sure some more'll come running out." After receiving Mishka's nod, Grizzly turned to Montmorency. He knew full well that the blonde didn't have much in the way of combat experience. He had already discussed with Siesta what to do with her. "You stay with him, alright? Give him any help he needs."

Montmorency nodded in affirmation, only slightly relieved not to be going into the thick of it.

"The rest of us will go in," Grizzly continued. "We'll sneak up and get as close as we can before we open up. We'll clear the place out as we're making our way to the garages."

Mishka had a question. "So, uh, what's the signal?"

"I'll radio you," Grizzly answered. He turned to the rest of the group. "Alright, let's go get this shit over with."

The group split up, leaving an apprehensive Montmorency alone with a man she knew nothing about.

Mishka unlatched the RPD's bipod legs and set the machinegun down near the side of the road. He gave the charging handle a stiff rack. "I've got a hundred rounds in this drum here," he said, looking to Montmorency as he retrieved several spare belts of linked cartridges from his pouches. "That's gonna run out pretty quick, so I need you to be on the spot with the next belt once I'm empty."

Montmorency had a hard time imagining a full one-hundred rounds stuffed into the RPD's drum. She eyed the belts placed on the ground. She breathed deep. "Alright. On the spot with the ammo. I can do that."

Mishka lid prone behind the machinegun and pressed the stock into his shoulder. "You nervous?" He asked.

The HK33 was ready after Montmorency disengaged the safety. "Yes."

"Are you ready?"

"No."

Mishka grunted, lining up the bandits. "Me neither."

* * *

Stumbling around in the darkness, Louise made doubly sure she wasn't going to accidentally step on Siesta's heels as they passed through the gap in the fence. The warehouse was upon them as they moved from grass to concrete. There were a few shipping containers against the side of the warehouse that were conveniently enough placed to keep them out of sight.

Louise stopped at a gap between two containers. She could already hear the bandits around the fire chatting and laughing at stupid jokes, but she couldn't see them from here. Kirche and Tabitha had already moved past. She moved ahead to the end of the container, where everybody was huddled.

The fire must have been around the corner, because Louise could see the dancing shadows cast on the concrete. Grizzly, Torba, and Siesta broke cover and creeped across the ten foot gap to the next container, barely concealed at the edge of darkness. Leva moved and dropped to his belly, Kirche moved out and crouched beside him, and Tabitha leaned out around the edge of the container.

Louise found herself almost fighting for a decent spot. She creeped out into the open, crouched behind Leva, and aimed over his head.

The warehouse was chocked full of stacked wooden crates. There was no wall, giving them an excellent view of the bandits lounging around the fire. There were eight of them, Louise counted, and it would only be a matter of seconds before they were spotted.

Grizzly depressed the talk button on his radio, and spoke in the lowest of voices. "Do it."

* * *

Mishka heard the order crackle though his own handset loud and clear. Without hesitation, he depressed the trigger and the RPD roared to life with a long burst. The first bandit fell, while the others scattered in search of cover. Mishka kept firing, intent on not letting that happen. Bright fireballs spat from the RPD's muzzle, and tracers zipped through the night.

On Mishka's left, Montmorency opened up with her own rifle. The felt recoil certainly wasn't as bad as the SKS, and she felt far more comfortable with thirty rounds at her disposal, rather than ten.

But that didn't change the fact that she was practically shitting herself out of fear, and missing most of her shots.

* * *

Louise didn't have much time to admire the destruction wrought by the ambush. The bandits hadn't even gotten the chance to lift a rifle, let alone fight back. She thought to herself, as she stepped over the bodies, that this was probably as close as it was going to get to feeling like a soldier in this strange world.

The element of surprise seemed to be over.

Grizzly had bellowed out the order to advance, along with the idea of getting Louise and Siesta to flank anybody who found themselves pinned down by Mishka. Louise felt that seemed sound enough, but she had no doubt that somebody somewhere had heard their little ambush loud and clear.

And they had. Louise was following behind Siesta as they zig-zagged through the narrow corridors between shipping containers when a rushing bandit flew out from around the corner ahead, meeting Siesta face-to-face. Louise didn't get the chance to imagine the surprised look on Siesta's face, because the former maid wasted no time in thrusting her rifle forward, catching the bandit between the ribs with her bayonet.

The man cried out, his own weapon dropped as he clutched desperately at the end of Siesta's rifle. She bowled him over, rose her rifle high in the air, and brought it back down again, and again.

Louise watched morbidly, noting it as one of the most violent things she'd ever seen Siesta do.

But Louise had a better presence of mind than to just stare. She didn't know if somebody had heard Siesta skewer the bandit, but another man came running out of the open end of a faded blue container.

Though, he did seem to be just as surprised to see Louise as she was to see him. Her carbine was already up, and the four bullets she lobbed through his chest sent him tumbling forward under his own momentum.

Siesta extracted the bayonet from the bandit's neck. "Shit!" She swore, knowing she would have been done for if Louise hadn't been there. She looked to the pink-haired girl, hefting herself to her feet. "Come on!"

After rounding another corner and barreling through long straight the area opened up drastically. They could see the front gate from here, and all of the bandits huddling behind containers pinned down by Mishka. They couldn't move or return fire for the most part, aside from the occasional blind shots.

Louise and Siesta crouched in the darkness, observing. "I see five," Siesta said. After a moment's silence between them, she looked over her shoulder. "You see five?"

Louise nodded rapidly. "I-I see five!"

The bandits didn't seem to have any inclination to try and defend their flanks. They probably weren't even aware that Louise and Siesta might be coming. The gunfire seemed to be coming from all around now. No doubt the others had run into the bandits elsewhere.

"Alright, lets –" Siesta was abruptly cut off when Mishka's machinegun suddenly stopped. "Shit, that's not good."

"What happened?" Louise asked frantically.

"He's probably reloading," Siesta said, shouldering the G3. The bandits were now taking a more proactive approach towards Mishka. "Come on. Let's get these guys."

* * *

"Monty!" Mishka roared, pre-emptively yanking the RPD's charging handle. He popped open the feed cover. "Next belt!"

The silence that the empty machinegun brought was a blessing in its own right, although Montmorency's ears were still muffled and ringing. As she reached to give Mishka the next belt of ammunition, she realized that since the RPD had stopped firing, the bandits were free to take them on.

They did, although it seemed the bandits couldn't quite zero in on them in the darkness. Bullets skittered all around, ricocheting off the pavement and burrowing into dirt. Montmorency let out a mouse-like squeak of fear at the whizzing and snapping.

Mishka set the belt in the feed tray and slammed the cover down. The RPD was up again, just in time. Montmorency peered down her sights, but couldn't see anybody. She kept scanning, and when a bandit broke cover seemingly to retreat he was cut down. Not by her, nor by Mishka, who was firing in a different direction.

Between Mishka's bursts, Montmorency heard her radio. She barely made out her name, or rather, her hated stalker name.

She brought up the handset, depressing the talk button. "What did you say!?" She shouted over the gunfire.

To listen, she put the radio right up against her ear. "I said we flanked the bandits!" Siesta's voice blared. "You guys can move up!"

"Mishka!" Montmorency hollered, rapping the machine gunner on the shoulder. He stopped firing. "They flanked them. We can move up."

Mishka nodded and got to his feet, hefting the RPD up along the way. He looped the belt over his arm. "Grab those belts and come on!"

Montmorency did as she was told and draped the belts around the back of her neck. Jingling like she was wearing a dozen bells, she huffed after Mishka as fast as her legs would let her.

* * *

Grizzly stepped over another fresh body, swapping an empty magazine for a full one. The snaking maze they had found themselves in was claustrophobic; only two of them could walk abreast. Grizzly stopped at a gap in the containers, and tentatively peered out.

They had reached the garages, it seemed. It would have been a blessing if there wasn't about fifty meters of open ground ahead of them, highlighted by several overhead lamps.

Grizzly looked to the rest. They were all ragged and breathing heavy, but none of them had gotten hit. Kirche was right behind him, smoke still rising from her Kalashnikov's muzzle. The gunfire seemed to have taken a quieter turn. Mishka's machine gun had stopped, and Grizzly had thankfully overheard Siesta and Montmorency on his own radio. "It's right there," Grizzly said, huffing. Kirche moved to peer out around him.

"I fucking hope Mitay is still alive man," Torba said.

Grizzly did too, but he didn't say it. The garages had two doors, one was open. Nobody seemed to be shooting so far. The bandits could be holed up in there, or it could be completely empty. Grizzly made his decision. "Alright. Let's go."

He swung out around the container. Kirche wasn't far behind, with the rest on their heels. They hadn't even gotten into the open when the bandits opened fire.

"Shit!" Grizzly yelled. "Get back! Get back!"

The others had done so easily enough, and Grizzly would have pushed back anyone in the way. Kirche, however, hadn't even gotten the chance to move. She could see the dirt thrown up about ten meters away, and then it felt like somebody had taken a club to her shin. Her right leg came out from under her and she fell back, screaming.

Kirche didn't know who it was, but somebody was yelling to drag her back into cover, somebody was returning the bandit's fire, and two pairs of arms were dragging her.

And soon, Kirche found herself staring up and Tabitha and Leva's worried faces. She looked around. They were on the opposite side of the gap as Grizzly and Torba. Her leg felt strange, cold, almost numb. It didn't hurt.

"What happened?" Kirche sputtered. "I-I think something hit me!"

"Yeah!" Leva shouted over Torba's supressing fire. "You just got shot!"

Kirche didn't believe it. "I... what!? No!" She looked to a very concerned Tabitha, who nodded her worst fear. Now that she realized that she had indeed been shot, the pain blossomed in full up her leg. The stabbing jolts of pain were accompanied by a dull burn. It hurt more than anything she'd ever felt.

"Tabitha!" Torba called. "Give us a fucking hand here!"

Reluctant, Tabitha left Kirche's side and leaned out around the shipping container, the Sudaev crackling.

"Leva!" Grizzly yelled. "How is she?"

Leva surveyed the damage done to Kirche's leg; a small hole oozing blood near the center of her shin. "It's not that bad!" He replied.

"Not that bad?" Kirche shrieked in disbelief. "How could it not be bad? I've been shot!"

"Yeah, but it's not that bad!"

"What can you do for her?" Torba called.

Leva shrugged off his backpack as Tabitha reloaded, diving in for some bandages. "I got some bandages here! I'll wrap it up, but we gotta get her back to Bonesetter!" He had torn apart the leg of Kirche's trousers already. He wiped away some of the blood.

"Scheiße!" Kirche swore, pounding at the dirt with a fist in an attempt to negate the pain. Tears bristled at her eyes. "Scheiße! Scheiße!"

Leva eyed her face. "Are you freaking German or something?"

Kirche had almost blurted no, but she remembered what she was supposed to tell people when asked. "Yes!" The gunfire continued, and she flinched. "Is... it really not that bad?"

Leva would have commented on the fact that she literally had no accent if it were a better time. "No, no, you'll be fine."

"I think..." Kirche paused to hiss as Leva started roughly wrapping cloth around her leg. "I think it bounced."

Torba emptied the final few rounds out of his L85, just as Tabitha leaned out to fire again.

Leva looked up. "What? Bounced?"

"Off the ground," Kirche clarified, motioning dirt being thrown up with her hand. "I think it came off the ground and hit me."

Leva shook his head. "You're some kind of special lucky."

"I don't feel like it!" Kirche shot.

"Hey, it could have been your face," Leva pointed out.

Kirche sighed. She couldn't deny that.

As Grizzly fished another magazine into his Kalashnikov, he distinctly heard Siesta's voice call out. "Grizzly! We're coming up behind!" Siesta appeared with Louise, Montmorency, and Mishka in tow around the last bend in the containers.

"Oh thank fuck you guys are here," Grizzly breathed in relief.

"The rest of the bandits are cleared out," Siesta informed, reaching up under the rim of her helmet to wipe the sweat from her brow. "Are the –" She stopped, seeing what was happening across the way. "Shit! What happened to Kirche?"

Montmorency's heart stopped. "Kirche!" She cried. "Are you alright?"

"I'm alive!" Kirche called back.

"She got hit," Grizzly said to Siesta. "But it isn't bad."

"Are you sure?" Siesta asked, deeply concerned. Grizzly's nod didn't do much to satisfy her. "Leva!" She called. "How is she?"

"She'll be fine!" Leva replied. "It was just a ricochet!"

That gave Siesta some relief. She looked to Montmorency, who still looked horrified. "Monty, you stay with her and Tabitha, alright?"

Montmorency nodded quickly, and before Siesta could stop her, she sprinted past the opening over to the other side just as Torba and Tabitha were reloading. She narrowly avoided becoming a pincushion.

"Shit, Monty!" Siesta roared. "I didn't mean run over there right fucking now!"

"Sorry!" Montmorency called back.

That left Siesta, Grizzly, Torba, Louise, and Mishka to continue the assault. Siesta wasn't particularly confident in those numbers. "So what's the plan now?" She let out a sarcastic snort. "Rush at them?"

"Fuck that!" Torba said.

"Yeah and then we'll all end up like Kirche over there," Grizzly grunted. He looked to the others. "Alright, Mishka, we'll cover you while you get that gun set up. Keep their heads down, and the rest of us will find a way around."

That plan sounded solid enough to everybody, so it was swiftly put into action. All available stalkers laid out the covering fire while Mishka dove to his stomach. The RPD opened up, tracers flying.

Siesta remained for a moment as Grizzly led Louise and Torba back the way they came. "Monty!" She yelled over the machinegun. "Keep Mishka fed up on ammo!"

"Alright!" Montmorency called back.

Once Siesta was gone, Mishka's already half-spent belt ran dry. "Monty! Reload!"

Montmorency practically threw the belt at Mishka, but he didn't seem to be complaining. She quickly raised her rifle, and along with Leva and Tabitha she fired blindly into the black square that was the garage door. Mishka latched the feed cover, and the RPD was up and firing again.

Louise found herself hooking around to the left with everybody else. They had sprinted through the warehouse, past the dead bandits and the dwindling fire, and right out through the open. She prayed Mishka's cover fire was enough to keep them from being shot to pieces, and she prayed that Kirche would really be alright. She wondered to herself, why did they have to get involved in this?

She supposed that if they did end up rescuing Mitay, it would be the only decent thing pulled out of a god-awful mess.

Louise practically slammed against the garage's concrete wall. Siesta, Grizzly, and Torba were in front of her as they slowly advanced on the open door. Mishka must have seen them, because his fire suddenly tapered off. There was a tense silence left afterward, broken only by the bandits yelling at each other inside the garages.

Remembering, Louise decided she had best swap magazines. She didn't know how many rounds she had left, but it couldn't have been many. Better safe than sorry, she supposed.

At the edge of the open door Grizzly could see a bandit lying dead. The cover fire seemed to have had a decent side- effect. He looked to the others, whispering. "Grenades."

Louise didn't have any, but Siesta and Torba did. Three grenades flew through the door, and bandits cried out in surprise.

The yells were promptly overpowered by the thunderous booms of the detonating grenades. Before silence could settle, Grizzly called out. "Again!"

Three more grenades flew, and three more explosions shook the wall against Louise's back. She gripped her rifle tight, following the other stalkers through the door.

The grenades had their intended effect. Nobody was left standing. Scorch marks marred the floor and bodies were strewn about, some detached of limbs, and others spilling innards. Louise felt strangely nonplussed at the sight of gore. She hated that.

Grizzly and Siesta finished off two men struggling to recover from the explosive onslaught. Louise spied one man lying near an old GAZ truck, clutching at the bloody stump that had once been his leg. She shot him twice through the chest, ending his misery.

There was only one doorway, leading to a brightly lit room. Somebody was frantically calling out from inside. "Hey! W- who's out there?"

Grizzly was reluctant to step into the room. "Mitay? Is that you buddy?"

"Grizzly!" Mitay called back. "Shit, bro. You really know how to make a frigging entrance!"

"Hey!" Torba said. "Is there anyone in there with you?"

"No man," Mitay replied. "Just some crazy dead dude. Come in and freaking untie me!"

Moving into the room, they found it was just as Mitay had said. There was nobody else inside. Mitay himself was sitting on his rear, his hands bound behind his back, and his face looking a little worse for wear. Louise noted he would be quite dashing if his nose wasn't broken and one of his eyes weren't blackened.

"Shit," Grizzly swore, advancing on his friend with a combat knife in hand. "They really did a number on you."

"They beat the shit out of me! Bastards..." Mitay growled. He took notice of Siesta and Louise. "Who the heck are they?"

"Our new best friends," Grizzly explained, freeing Mitay's hands. "There's more of us outside."

Mitay breathed, relieved. "You really threw this together, huh?"

"Damn right," Torba answered. "Do you think you can walk? We gotta get moving before more of these assholes show up."

Louise took her gaze away from Mitay. The room was small with a few desks and workbenches against the walls. At the far end of the room, she took notice of the deceased Mitay had mentioned. He looked drastically out of place wearing his heavy metal armor, and bright violets.

Advancing on the corpse, Louise could only fathom at how a Tristainian Mage Knight had ended up here of all places. It seemed he had been felled by a bullet through his cranium, but not before he had been beaten senseless.

Louise looked to Siesta, who had also noticed. The former maid stopped at Louise's side, her face grim. "My God..." Louise breathed, being sure to speak Tristanian.

Siesta could agree with that statement. "How could somebody like this end up here?"

Louise's stomach was icy. "The same way as us."

"Fucking hell," Siesta grunted, standing over the body. "That's a damn mage knight if I've ever seen one."

Louise couldn't help but feel bad for the man. She cursed the bandits in her mind.

Looking over her shoulder, Siesta called out to Mitay. "Hey. What's the news with this guy?"

"No idea," Mitay answered. He looked like he was barely able to stay on his feet, even while supported by Torba. "He couldn't speak anything the bandits could understand. He would just yell at them in, I don't know, French or some shit. He freaking head-butted one of them, so they just shot him in the face."

"Fuck," Siesta swore under her breath. She approached the mage knight, knelt down besides, and began patting him down.

"Siesta... don't do that," Louise admonished, her face creased in disapproval. She had no qualms with looting the corpses of their enemies, but she felt this was a little different. Siesta didn't seem to care, however.

"What?" Siesta said innocently. "He might have something we can use."

"Oh like what?" Louise said mockingly. "Ammo? Just leave him alone."

Siesta stood. The mage knight didn't have anything on his person. She glanced around the lit room, and spied something suspicious on a workbench nearby. Walking over, she grabbed the sheathed sword-wand. She held it up for Louise to see. "Hey. Lookie here."

Louise balked. "Get rid of that!" She hissed. "Before one of them sees!"

But it was too late. "Hey, uh," Torba began from across the room. "Is that a freaking sword?"

Siesta felt a little sheepish, thinking of the best way to cover for herself. "I think so."

"Yeah," Mitay grunted, stumbling towards the door with Torba's help. "That guy was messed up man..."

Siesta handed off the magical weapon to Louise. "Here," she said quietly, feeling Grizzly's stare. "Put it in my pack. We'll give it to Kirche as a present later."

Louise grasped the sword-wand, and when Siesta turned around, she noticed an obvious problem. "Siesta, it won't fit."

"Just let it stick out then, I don't care."

Grizzly stared. "...You're gonna keep that? Hurry up, we gotta get going."

Siesta grinned. "Sure, why not? Souvenir. Maybe I'll charge into battle with a sword one of these days," she joked.

"Good way to get shot," Louise grumbled under her breath, fastening the zipper on Siesta's backpack.

"That would look kind of badass, though," Torba commented from the door. "But you probably would get shot up."

Siesta shrugged. "Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?"

* * *

 _A/N: This is one of those chapters I didn't think I would ever finish. It felt long writing it, but it's only about 9000 words._

 _The gunfight is over, and Mitay is in safe hands. A good resolution, I suppose._

 _Well, except that this particular adventure isn't over yet._

 _Welp, not much to say this time, so no tl;dr author's note for you today. I hope you guys enjoyed. The shitstorm is just beginning for our girls. This may just end up being one of the more action-oriented acts of the story._

 _But don't quote me on that. You should all know by now that if I say something in an author's note, I'll probably end up doing something else._

 _Like always, drop a review if you feel inclined. Tell me if I did a good job, or tell me if I messed something up. Either way, it's appreciated!_


	29. The Road to Pripyat IV

_The Road to Pripyat IV_

 _Jupiter_

 _September 13th, 2012_

 _01:14_

The container warehouses had been left behind without delay, and the group had quickly come to find that neither Kirche nor Mitay in their current states were going to make it back to Yanov Station in a single trip. Mitay could barely walk under his own power, and Kirche absolutely needed support to even move, which was still an agonizing task for the Germanian. Kirche had grown rather pale. They needed to stop and rest. The only place around was the small station along the train tracks.

Thus, the group had found themselves camping out in the small stationhouse. Everyone had decided to start taking naps, which was just as well. It was the middle of the night, after all. Siesta and Montmorency had drawn the short straws, putting them on first watch.

The stationhouse felt cramped. There was an entry way, the empty room they were in, and a back room with a disused bathroom. In the back there was a doorway that had been boarded up only halfway. It looked like it led to some underground passages. Everybody opted to keep away from that.

Kirche couldn't find it in herself to drift off. Her leg was downright killing her. Tabitha seemed to have no problem passing out, however. She was against the wall like Kirche, firmly snuggled right up next to her. Louise was nearby in a corner, sleeping soundly with her head hanging forward. She had dozed off sitting up.

Siesta broke the silence from nearby. "How are you holding up?"

Kirche knew that Siesta could only be talking to her. The former maid was sitting by the adjacent wall, staring out the window. "It hurts," Kirche stated obviously. "I suppose I know how you felt now."

"Yeah, you do," Siesta snorted. She glanced around the room, and then leaned her head against the wall with a sigh. "Get some sleep, Kirche."

"I can't," Kirche said. "It hurts too much. Besides... what if I don't wake up again?"

Siesta almost wanted to laugh. "The bleeding stopped. You're not going to die."

Kirche felt Tabitha draw closer. She relented. "Fine, I'll at least try. But if I do die, it's on your conscience."

As Kirche closed her eyes, she could hear Siesta grumbling. "Hey, I wasn't the one who shot you."

Siesta went back to her watch. She didn't dare light a cigarette, even though the urge made itself known. It would be just her luck for somebody passing by to see the light. After a few minutes, Siesta remembered that Montmorency should also be awake, sitting at the other end of the room.

Turning her head, Siesta found that Montmorency was indeed awake. "Monty," Siesta said. "You can get some sleep if you want. I don't mind."

Montmorency stared blankly at the wall. Her voice was barely above a croak. "I don't think I can."

"Are you alright?"

Montmorency looked down at her hands. "I'm still shaking... God. What was all of that? I still can't make sense of it all. It all just happened so fast..." She looked up, to Siesta. "How many times have you done something like that in your life?"

Siesta looked away, back out the window. Kirche's breathing had slowed, deepening. The Germanian had managed to drift off. "Enough."

Montmorency buried her face in her knees. "I just want this all to end..."

"Yeah, well, me too. I –" Siesta fell short, her breath loudly hitching.

Montmorency froze. "What... what is it?" She hissed quietly.

Siesta slowly adjusted her rifle into a ready grip. "There's something outside," she whispered.

Grabbing her own rifle, Montmorency made to silently crawl over. "You... you're just joking, right?"

Siesta glared. "No, I'm not joking!" She hissed sharply. "There's something fucking outside!"

Montmorency frantically crawled to the windows as quietly as possible. She looked outside. "I-I don't see anything. What do you think it is?"

Siesta shushed the blonde. "Just listen."

Montmorency crept closer. After a few solid seconds of silence, Siesta cocked her bottom against the wooden floor, and let out a loud fart.

Completely filled with disbelief, Montmorency gaped as Siesta was taken over by uncontrollable giggles. "You..." When she took in a breath, Montmorency smelled it. She promptly covered her nose. "Oh, Founder! What is wrong with you? There just has to be something wrong inside of your head, I know it!"

That only served to make Siesta laugh harder. She seemed to be having a hard time keeping her giggles stifled. "You... you should have just seen your face! Priceless!"

All of the commotion roused another occupant of the room. Louise cracked her eyes open, half asleep. She looked between the two girls, the disgruntled Montmorency, and the hooting Siesta. "Wha... what are you..." Then, she caught the smell. Louise's little face immediately curdled, turning sour. She was wide awake now. "Siesta! Did you just die or something?" She hissed. "Or did you just crap your pants? For the love of God!"

Siesta wiped her eyes. "Monty, you and Louise are the best people to torment. Seriously."

Montmorency just huffed and crossed her arms, while Louise opted to flop onto the floor and use her backpack as a makeshift pillow.

A very uncomfortable makeshift pillow.

"Honestly," Louise grumbled. "You would swear something was dead in here."

Siesta's quiet laughter took a few minutes to taper off. By then, Montmorency had grown less irate and Louise had settled back into slumber. Siesta, with a look at her watch, noted with disdain that her watch would still be another hour.

"So, Siesta," Montmorency spoke up.

Siesta looked. Montmorency was staring down at her own feet more than anything. "What's up?"

"What year are you from?"

Siesta furrowed her brow. "What?"

Montmorency looked up. "You know. What year was it in Halkeginia when you disappeared?"

"Oh," Siesta said, still finding the question a little weird. "Uh, 6242, why?"

Montmorency's heart stopped. She didn't dare look Siesta in the eye now. "I... I don't know. I was just wondering."

Siesta was wholly unconvinced. Nevertheless, she shrugged it off. "Oh, alright."

Leaning her head back, Montmorency sighed. "I think I'm going to try and get some sleep now."

"G'night sugar plum."

"Please don't ever call me that."

* * *

Louise felt herself being shaken awake. She felt like striking out with a swat, but settled on forcing her eyelids open. She took in the blurry shape of Siesta's face staring down in the dark. "Hey," she whispered. "Your watch. Get up."

Groaning, Louise nodded and waved the formed maid away. She had noticed on several occasions that when Siesta would wake up she'd sometimes breathe out something vulgar under her breath. Louise certainly felt like doing that now.

Getting on her feet, Louise shuffled over towards the windows. Siesta had sat down against the wall, and the moonlight coming through the window made her face glow. "Who else is on watch with me?" Louise mumbled, sitting near the other window.

"I am," Siesta said.

Louise furrowed her brow. "You did first watch though."

Siesta grunted. "I can't freakin' sleep."

"Have you tried?"

"No, I haven't," Siesta said. "But I know I won't be able to."

Louise stared. "Is something wrong?"

Siesta sighed. "I feel bad about Kirche getting shot."

"I... well, I feel bad for her too," Louise said, a confused edge to her voice. "But it isn't like you shot her."

"I might as well have," Siesta grumbled. "It wouldn't have happened if it weren't for me."

"She'll be fine, I'm sure."

"Oh I know she will," Siesta said confidently. "Bonesetter will fix her right up, and we've got Monty too. It's just... like, what if it wasn't her leg? What if it was her face or something?"

Louise winced. "But it wasn't."

Siesta rested her head on the wall, intent on not continuing that conversation. She decided on a change in subject. Talking would surely help keep Louise awake anyway. "So what would you do if you somehow found yourself back in Tristain?"

That took Louise by surprise. "I would go home."

Siesta scoffed. "Oh, come on," she whined. "At least tell me something interesting."

Louise leaned her head back. "I would finally sleep in my own bed, probably for an entire day. I wouldn't even move." She could hear Siesta snort. "And then I would get my hands on as much wine as I could, and get drunk for about a week straight." She looked to Siesta. "What about you?"

"I guess I'd do something like that," Siesta replied. "I don't know about wine, though. That's a little too prissy for me."

Louise could agree with that. If Siesta weren't a stalker, Louise could definitely imagine her being a farm girl through and through.

"I miss my dog," Siesta commented.

Louise looked. "You had a dog?"

"Yeah," Siesta nodded. "Well, he was a family dog."

"What kind of dog?" Louise asked.

Siesta snorted. "I don't know. He was just a mutt, but I loved him." She laughed quietly. "He used to crap in the house all the time." Louise rolled her eyes, but smiled anyway. "He'd always have the same look on his face when he did it. My little sister Claire would ask him, 'where's the poop?'"

Louise laughed. "She would?"

Siesta nodded, chuckling. "Yeah."

Louise found herself smiling at a memory. "My sister Cattleya used to have lots of animals." Her smile turned sad.

"She's been sick her entire life and I think they're one of the only things keeping her from giving up completely."

"Oh yeah? What kind of animals did she have?" Siesta asked.

Louise snorted. "Probably anything you could think of."

Siesta decided to think of an animal that she thought would be impossible to have as a pet. "A bear."

"Cattleya had a bear."

Siesta did not believe that for a second. "Come on. Yeah right."

"I'm serious," Louise assured her. "He was a brown bear."

"What was his name?"

"Percival," Louise answered.

Siesta suddenly laughed. "Percival! That's such a bear name!"

Louise laughed too. "I know! He loved hugs."

"Bear hugs," Siesta said, grinning.

Louise giggled at that. "If you waved at him," she added. "He'd wave back at you."

"Oh come on," Siesta said, shaking her head. She still smiled. "Now I know you're lying."

"No, I'm telling the truth," Louise insisted, leaning forward. "I would sometimes see him outside in the gardens during breakfast and I'd wave. All of our servants were so scared of him."

"Well I would imagine, since he was, you know, a freaking bear," Siesta pointed out.

Louise was about to add something, but a noise echoing from the back room gave her pause, the scratching of claws against the floor. She froze. The M4A1 had found its way into Louise's hands.

Siesta got up and switched on her flashlight. "Stay here."

Louise balked. "What? Where are you going?" She hissed.

"I'm going to check that out."

"No! Just wait a second!"

"Just wait here," Siesta pressed. She moved into the darkness of the next room.

That exchange seemed to have roused Torba nearby. He propped himself up on an elbow, blinking the sleep away. "What the heck is going on?"

"I don't know," Louise groaned. "We heard a noise, and Siesta ran off on her own like an idiot!"

Siesta had ducked underneath the boards in the back room, and had found herself in concrete walled passageways. Creeping ahead, she was all too aware that the section of tunnel around her seemed primed to collapse. The hallway intersected ahead, and past that through a doorway she could see that the floor in the next room was grated.

And on that floor she could see the dozens of rodents scurrying around. Their beady red eyes turned on her.

Siesta opened fire.

Louise heard the long automatic burst loud and clear, much like everybody in the room. She was on her feet and running before anybody could get any answers out of her. She ducked underneath the boards and sprinted into the tunnel. Siesta wasn't very far away.

Coming up beside the former maid, Louise called out. "Siesta!"

Siesta jumped, and dropped something in the process. Louise and Siesta both watched in horror as the live grenade hit the floor.

Louise couldn't remember what it was specifically, but Siesta had let out a very long and very loud swear. Siesta grabbed her by the arm, pulling her ahead and into the intersecting hallway. They huddled against the wall in cover.

The grenade detonated, and Louise found herself deaf to the world around her. The dust kicked up was a choking cloud that rushed out around them. Louise could feel the passage shaking all around, even though the explosion had obviously ended.

Louise was grabbed by her shoulders. Looking up in a daze, she could see that Siesta was saying something, but all she could hear was ringing. Siesta didn't look very pleased, however.

"What!?" Louise shouted. She could barely hear her own voice. "I can't hear you!"

Siesta pulled Louise back to where they had been moments before, and then pointed. When she looked, Louise's jaw fell open. The tunnel had completely collapsed behind them.

Louise could feel the ringing fading. "How... the tunnel!"

"Yeah, the tunnel," Siesta ground out, pissed. "You just had to come up and scare me didn't you? I told you to stay put! Look at this!"

Louise glared. "Don't put this on me! You shouldn't have run in here on your own!" She countered.

From beyond the rubble, they two girls could plainly hear Montmorency's voice call out. There seemed to be a small opening next to the wall, although it was far too small to squeeze through. Through it they could see flashlights moving around.

"Monty!" Siesta called, moving up on the rubble. She could see the blonde's face through the hole.

"What happened?" Montmorency asked desperately.

Louise, deciding to keep watch with her rifle, answered. "We just messed up a little!"

Siesta glared darkly. "We messed up? It was your fault!"

"I didn't drop the grenade!"

"I wouldn't have dropped it if it weren't for you!"

"A grenade!?" Montmorency shrieked. "What were you doing with a grenade!?"

Siesta sighed, and decided to just explain the situation. "Alright. So we heard this sound, and I went to check it out. I got in here and there were a ton of those damn rodents coming at me, so I started shooting. I guess Louise came running then, and while I was getting ready to lob a grenade into those bastards she came up behind me and scared me, so I ended up dropping it. I think the explosion collapsed the tunnel."

"What was in that grenade?" Siesta heard Leva remark from somewhere behind Montmorency. "A freaking nuke?"

"Well... the tunnel was weak here!" Siesta pointed out. "Is everybody with you right now?" She asked Montmorency.

"It's just Leva and Grizzly right here with me," Montmorency explained. "Everybody else is in the other room."

"Alright. Let me talk to Grizzly." Montmorency switched places with Grizzly, not unlike somebody would hand off a telephone to the next person.

"Are you guys alright?" Was the first thing Grizzly said.

"We're not guys!" Louise pointed out.

Siesta and Grizzly both ignored that. "We're fine," Siesta reassured him. "Listen, you guys should get out of here. Take everybody and get back to the station."

"What?" Grizzly said in disbelief. "Wait – we can't just leave you in there. We gotta get you out."

"No, it'll take forever." Siesta eyed over the rubble. Large chunks of concrete, bent rebar, and even a few boulders. There was no getting through this. "There has to be another way out of here. We'll find something."

While Grizzly had been considered the leader of the mission, he wasn't going to stay and argue with his senior stalker. "Listen, don't worry about your friend, alright? We'll get her to bonesetter."

Siesta nodded. "Thanks. We'll meet you back at the station."

Grizzly didn't remain long after that. Siesta could hear him gathering everybody. Soon enough, Siesta and Louise were alone.

"So... rodents." Louise continued to keep watch with her rifle and flashlight. "What are those?"

"Oh man," Siesta breathed. "They're these nasty little bastards. They've got these freaking sharp as hell claws. Don't let them get on you. They'll tear the crap right out of you."

"You said there were a lot of them, didn't you?" Louise asked nervously. "Where did they go?"

"I think the grenade scared them off," Siesta reasoned. "Hopefully we won't see them again. Come on, let's get moving."

"Wait, wait," Louise turned towards Siesta. "You've still got that sword wand, right? Just give it to me. I'll try and blow a hole through this rubble."

Siesta looked sheepish. "Yeah... about that sword wand."

Louise stared. "What happened to the sword wand?" She looked, noticing something missing other than Siesta's helmet. "You don't have your backpack..."

Wincing, Siesta scratched the back of her neck. "No. I don't have my backpack."

Louise groaned and threw her head back. "That's just perfect, you know." She really couldn't say much, having left her own backpack behind as well.

Siesta huffed, and glared. "Well sorry. I didn't exactly expect this to happen. Let's just try to find a way out before those rodents decide to come back."

There was no reason to disagree, so Louise followed Siesta as they moved ahead to the intersecting hallways. To the right there were stairs leading upward, and left, downward. Straight ahead was a small room full of drainage pipes.

"Which way?" Louise asked.

"Up," Siesta replied. "Always up."

That sounded reasonable to Louise. Going deeper when you were trapped underground seemed a little counterproductive. There was a landing in the middle of the straight stairwell, with a single door to the left. It led to another room full of pipes and electrical panels. The girls moved on.

There was a similar room at the top of the stairs, although there was a door at the far end of it leading to more concrete passageways. The two girls advanced through the room with flashlights lighting the way. The grated metal flooring rattled underfoot.

The next area was a short twisting passage. On the other end, the girls found themselves in a remarkably large area. Stairs descended to an uneven dirt floor in a wide room filled with rows of concrete pillars. Heavy pipes spanned across the ceiling against supports, there was a door at the far end of the room, and surprisingly, sections of the ceiling were grated, allowing them a view of the night sky.

"What is this place?" Louise asked distantly.

Siesta shrugged. "Don't know. Don't wanna know."

They moved into the room, finding the silt damp underfoot. Partway through, Louise noted with interest that a crooked tree was growing next to a pillar. She supposed enough sunlight and rain ended up down here to keep it sustained. The door at the end of the room led to another twisting passage, at the end of which was another large room full of pillars like the last.

Oddly, there was a crooked little tree growing next to a pillar, just like in the last room. Louise thought that was pretty strange, but she put it out of mind.

That is, until she noticed the exact same tree was in the next room, in the exact same spot.

"Siesta," Louise called, wary. "I... think we're going in circles."

Siesta stopped and looked at Louise like she was an idiot. "In circles? We've been going straight, Louise."

"But look." Louise pointed to the tree. "I've seen this tree three times now."

Siesta gave the tree a stare. "You're imagining it. Let's keep moving."

The girls continued on into the next room, and as Louise expected, it was exactly the same as the last. Right down to the pipes, grated ceiling, and the little crooked tree.

Siesta stopped next to the tree. "You're kidding me..."

"See?" Louise said haughtily. "We're going in circle."

"No, no." Siesta shook her head in disbelief. She pointed at Louise's feet. "Stay here. Just stay right here."

Louise, dumbfounded, stared at Siesta's back. "Wha... Siesta! Wait!" Her grip tightened on her rifle once she found herself alone. Just what was Siesta planning?

When Louise heard footsteps coming up from behind, she whirled around with her rifle ready.

And narrowly avoided plugging Siesta full of holes in full-automatic.

She lowered the rifle. "...Siesta?"

Siesta's face was ghostly pale. She looked scared out of her mind. That didn't give Louise a good feeling. "Oh. Shit."

* * *

 _Yanov Station_

Leva threw open the door to Bonesetter's clinic. "Bonesetter!" He hollered into the dark room. "Get your ass up! We got wounded!"

When Leva flicked on the light, he found that Bonesetter had been sleeping on the scavenged hospital bed himself. Bonesetter jolted bolt upright, eyeing his late night visitors with a bleary face. "Wha...?"

Torba helped Kirche through the door. "Come on, man. Get up! Somebody's hurt here!"

"Shit!" Bonesetter swore. He jumped off the bed, wiping his eyes. "What have you got?"

As Torba settled Kirche on the bed, Grizzly spoke up. "Gunshot wound, lower leg. It's not that bad."

"It's not that bad?" Bonesetter parroted, annoyed. "Then why did you burst in here freaking out?"

"Sorry man," Leva apologized. "But... I mean, that's what they do in movies, right?"

Bonesetter fixed Leva with one very unimpressed stare. He moved over to Kirche, where Tabitha and Montmorency weren't far away. It wasn't hard to figure out where Kirche had taken the hit. Her blood-soaked trouser leg had been torn to pieces.

"You're gonna need new pants," Bonesetter commented.

Kirche snorted weakly. "I think that's the least of my worries."

Bonesetter got to unwinding the reddened bandages, a task took only a short time. He observed the wound. "It's still in there."

Kirche nodded. "I know."

"It's not very deep though," Bonesetter said. "I can probably just pluck it right out." He left Kirche to get the things he was going to need, and a stool to sit on.

"But... that's going to hurt a lot, isn't it?" Montmorency asked.

Bonesetter eyed the blonde and nodded. He turned his gaze onto the rest of the stalkers. "You guys can go now if you want. I'll take it from here."

Grizzly nodded, departing with Torba, Leva, Mitay, and Mishka after bidding their farewells. Bonesetter sat down in front of Kirche's leg with a menagerie of antiseptics, scalpels, and tweezers. Kirche looked on warily.

"I... I thought you were supposed to leave bullets in," Kirche said.

Bonesetter looked up. "Most of the time, yeah. Since this one's so shallow, I'll get it out for you." His mouth drew into a thin line. "This is, uh, really gonna suck, by the way."

* * *

"Louise, it's no use. Just stop, alright?"

Louise stopped in her tracks, and glared. "No! There has to be a way out of here. I'm not going to just sit around and mope."

Siesta watched Louise disappear for what had to be the hundredth time. She was sitting in the small junction that somehow connected the infinite amount of rooms, her back against a wall. They had tried going back and forward, but no matter which way they went it always led back to the same room full of pillars.

It was probably a space anomaly, Siesta thought. She'd heard of them before. The stories were all the same, no matter what direction you went, you always ended up back where you started.

It just went to show how messed up the Zone truly was.

Stalkers had gotten out of anomalies like this, but Siesta had no idea how, and neither did the stalkers who had escaped. She was beginning to believe that they were truly screwed this time. They'd run out of water soon, and they didn't have anything to eat since Siesta had left her backpack behind.

While Siesta opted to save her energy and brood for the time being, Louise was constantly walking straight through the rooms. Every minute or so Louise would pass through the junction, always going in the same direction.

It was certainly a surreal sight.

It didn't take long for Louise to appear again.

"Can you seriously stop, Louise?"

Sighing, Louise seemed like she was finally going to relent. "Fine." She moved over to where Siesta was and sat against the wall a few feet away. "I'm getting tired anyway."

There were a few moments of tense silence that passed. Louise couldn't really wrap her head around why Siesta was acting this way.

"Siesta," Louise spoke up. "What is the matter with you all of a sudden? This is backwards. I'm the one who's supposed to brood and you're supposed to be the one who keeps me going."

Siesta scoffed. "I've heard about these things before."

"These things? You mean what's happening to us now?"

Siesta nodded. "There's plenty of stories going around. People call them space anomalies, because I guess they just mess with... I dunno, space."

Louise leaned her head back against the wall. "How do we get out?"

"I don't know."

Louise felt a little baffled. "People have gotten out of them before, haven't they? Or else there wouldn't be any stories."

"Yeah, obviously," Siesta muttered. "But there's no actual cut and dry way to do it. Just blind luck."

"That's great," Louise moaned. "Our luck has always been at an abysmal low."

Siesta got out a cigarette. "Well if we didn't have bad luck we'd have no luck at all."

"So what?" Louise asked as Siesta got to smoking. "We're just going to sit here while you smoke?"

"I'm taking a break," Siesta groaned. "I'm freaking tired as hell, Louise. We'll keep trying soon, I guess."

Louise huffed and crossed her arms. She took to eyeing Siesta as she smoked. Louise sighed. "Could I try one?"

"Try what?" Siesta asked. She eyed her own cigarette. "One of these? Why?"

"Well if I'm going to die down in this hole like you're insinuating then I at least want to try something new first," Louise snapped loudly.

Siesta shrugged. "Up to you." She pulled a single cigarette from her flattened pack and handed it off to the pink-haired girl. Siesta gave her the lighter, and instructed her on how to light the white rod.

A few seconds later Louise spat out a cloud of smoke, hacking. "God! That's disgusting! Why do you even do this?"

Siesta found it in herself to laugh. "What did you expect?"

"Not this!"

Nevertheless, Louise kept at it, coughing and twisting her face. Siesta could tell the pink-haired girl was eager to get back at finding a way out, but the muffled clap of thunder put that on hold. An emission was beginning, and the main room didn't offer much in the way of cover because of the grated ceiling. They would have to stay in here until it passed.

When Louise had finished the cigarette she threw the butt carelessly across the room and rested her head against the wall. "Siesta."

"What?"

Louise shifted. "Um... what year are you from?"

Siesta slowly turned her head to meet Louise's eyes. Louise looked away uncomfortably at the sight of the suspicion etched on Siesta's face. "You want to know what year I'm from?"

Clearing her throat, Louise nodded. "Yes."

"Why? What's going on? What are you all planning on doing?"

Louise stared incredulously. "Planning? Nobody's planning anything!"

"Bullshit," Siesta called out. "Monty asked me the same freaking thing earlier. Don't even think about telling me you're just curious."

"Just tell me what year!"

Siesta narrowed her eyes. "6242."

It looked like Louise's heart had stopped. She stared distantly. "...Oh."

"Alright, spill it," Siesta grunted. "What's going on?"

Louise sighed, relenting. She supposed she might as well get on with it. She had a feeling Siesta was going to be a little upset with her in a few moments. "It's... we've been talking, about, you know, everything. About what's probably been happening in our world... because of me."

"Louise..."

"You've been here for almost five years now," Louise cut in, refusing to meet Siesta's eyes. "But... you're from the same year as I am."

Siesta stared. "What?" She sputtered in disbelief. "That's not even..."

"I think that if it wasn't for me, none of this would have ever happened. None of this would have happened to you. It's my fault."

The silence that followed was suffocating. Louise chanced it and took a glance towards Siesta, finding that the former maid was resting her face in a hand.

"Siesta I –" Siesta promptly bolted to her feet and made her leave. Louise got up and chased after her into the next room. Luckily, the rumbling emission had ended a few minutes ago. "Siesta!" Louise called. "Siesta I know you're upset but I didn't –"

Siesta whirled around, the darkest of glares on her face. "Upset? You think I'm upset?" She began advancing on the pink-haired girl, forcing her to backpedal. "If I was driving a wagon and the wheel broke, I would be upset. If my dog was trampled by a horse, I would be upset. I am not fucking upset, Louise! I don't even know what the fuck I am right now!"

Louise felt her stomach twist. "Siesta, please, I –"

"No! Shut the fuck up!" Siesta roared, turning away. She stomped towards the other end of the room. "Just leave me alone! You ruined my fucking life!"

Louise just watched her go, ashamed. She had ruined Siesta's life; she knew that in her heart. There probably couldn't have been a worst time to bring something like this up, when they were here, stuck in a hole together. Siesta couldn't go far. Louise supposed that if Siesta would stay in the junction between the infinite rooms, then she would just have to stay out here.

Perhaps she could even find a way out while Siesta cooled off.

That is, if Siesta cooled off. Louise somehow doubted that would come easy.

Louise looked around the room for anything she could use. The grated ceiling caught her attention again. One of the large pipes ran underneath it. Maybe if she could get up there...

She sighed deeply. She'd certainly done it this time.

* * *

 _A/N: I updated this while I was at work, which is where I actually do most of my writing. One of the many reasons why I love my job._

 _So anyway, nothing much happened here. I'll pick up Louise and Siesta's predicament in the next chapter. I was originally going to include it in this chapter, but I wanted to get some content out. Besides, the opening I have planned next would function good as the beginning of the next chapter._


	30. The Road to Pripyat V

_The Road to Pripyat V_

 _Jupiter_

 _September 13th, 2012_

 _05:23_

Siesta slunk into the room, her shoulders drooping. It had taken a while for her to cool off, and now that she had, she felt a little ashamed for blowing up so harshly at Louise.

Sure, it stood to reason that if it wasn't for Louise she would never have been taken to the Zone, but it wasn't like Louise had intended for that to happen. Siesta felt a little conflicted. Technically it was Louise's fault, but at the same time...

Siesta didn't want to blame her for it.

So here Siesta was, ready to offer up an apology for her outburst. There was only one problem. Louise was nowhere to be seen. She looked around, incredulous. "...Louise?" Siesta walked deeper into the room, passing through the centermost row of pillars. She started feeling a little worried. Had Louise managed to get out? Feeling desperate, she realized she could be stuck here by herself now. "Come on, Louise. Where are you? Come out!"

"I'm up here."

Relief flowed through Siesta, followed quickly by a cloud of confusion. She looked up, and was dumbfounded to find Louise sitting on one of the pipes that spanned across the room, swinging her legs idly. "What the heck are you doing up there?" Siesta cried.

"I was trying to find a way out," Louise replied quietly. "I didn't find one."

"What's up past that grate?"

Louise looked up. "I don't really know. It's just pitch black out there. I think it's foggy."

Siesta deflated. "Well... just come down, alright?"

The Tristanian didn't move. She simply stared down at Siesta, her face shrouded in darkness. Siesta noted that she looked a little creepy like that.

Sighing, Siesta pinched at her nose. "Louise... please. I want to talk to you."

"You can talk to me just fine from right there," Louise pointed out.

Was Louise mad? Siesta doubted it. Her mood was probably leaning more towards the depressed end of the spectrum. Siesta spread out her arms as she spoke. "I'm sorry I got mad, alright? But can you really blame me?"

A brief silence followed. Louise's legs continued kicking. "No. I don't blame you at all."

"Just come down," Siesta urged.

"Actually, I..." Louise paused, taking in a breath. "I've been too scared to move for a while now."

At that moment Siesta felt like inserting her face directly into her palm. "For the love of... why did you even go up there then?"

"To find a way out. I told you."

Siesta groaned. "It'll be fine, Louise. Just work your way down."

Louise looked down. "Should I just jump?"

"No don't jump! It's like thirty feet!" Siesta hollered in disbelief. "Come down the same way you went up."

"It'll take me a minute," Louise announced. She straddled the pipe and started tentatively shuffling over towards the nearest pillar. When she finally reached it, Siesta noted that this particular pillar had most of its face missing. There were

plenty of footholds and exposed rebar to grab onto. Still, she had to wonder.

"You seriously climbed this?" Siesta asked as Louise slowly made her way down. "I wouldn't even do that."

"I was feeling kind of – Oh! – Waaah!" With a great shriek Louise lost her footing and plummeted towards the ground. Panicking, Siesta stretched her arms out to catch her.

She knew that this was about to seriously hurt.

Louise landed right on top of Siesta, bowling her over onto the ground. They remained that way for a few moments, both of them groaning out. Louise rolled away. "That wasn't so bad," she said weakly.

Siesta rose to a sit and spat onto the floor. Blood trailed from her mouth.

"You're bleeding," Louise observed, worried. "Are you –"

Siesta waved her off, disgruntled. "The back of your head hit my freaking mouth."

Louise frowned, her eyes downcast. "I'm sorry."

Getting to her feet, Siesta shrugged. "Don't worry about it. Just a little cut on my lip. Are you alright? Can you still walk?"

Rising, Louise unslung her rifle. "I'm fine."

Siesta eyed her. Louise looked entirely depressed, and it didn't seem like it was going to fade anytime soon. Siesta decided they could talk more later. Finding a way out was a priority.

Louise, evidently, already had the same idea. "Let's go," she said. "We should keep trying to find a way."

Sighing, Siesta followed behind Louise. "Yeah."

It seemed they were merely going to complete a lap when they passed through the junction, but Siesta was swiftly proven wrong. Louise had been walking ahead, and when she emerged back into the room Siesta could hear the crackling of electricity, and Louise's squeal of surprise.

Siesta sprinted the short distance. Flying back into the same room she'd passed through a million times already. Louise was standing, her mouth agape. Anomalies had suddenly manifested between the gaps of a select few pillars. Sparkling light gently floated down to the ground, fluttering like a curtain.

Siesta stared. "...Did this start just now?"

Louise just nodded dumbly. She stepped forward.

"Hey!" Siesta hissed. "Don't go over there. You don't know what that is!"

"Its fine," Louise assured her, despite the fact she had no idea at all. She picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it through the field of fluttering stars. Nothing happened. Louise advanced further.

"Louise!" Siesta hollered, seeing what the pink-haired girl was about to do. "Don't you fucking –"

Louise waved her arm through the anomaly. The sparkles of light pricked at her skin, tickling. It was strange to her. It was as if they were there, but at the same time, they weren't. Louise felt herself grabbed by the shoulder and pulled roughly backwards. She turned, staring up at Siesta's rather angry face.

"What is wrong with you?" Siesta hissed, giving Louise a shake. "You have no idea what that could have done to you!"

"It didn't do anything," Louise pointed out.

"But it could have killed you!"

Louise pried Siesta's hands off, looking nonplussed. "Maybe this could help us get out of here."

Siesta scoffed. "How? They're just some anomalies. They probably started up because of that emission earlier."

Louise turned away, giving the fluttering field of stars a scrutinizing gaze. She wasn't so sure about them being pointless. There had to be something.

* * *

 _Yanov Station_

 _06:13_

Kirche awoke feeling a lot better than she had the night before, despite only managing a dismal amount of sleep. Lying on the floor, she craned her head to find none other than Montmorency looming over her leg. The blonde's face shone with sweat, and was creased in exertion. Nearby, Tabitha was watching on intently. She was the first to notice Kirche was awake.

"You're awake," the Gallian remarked, moving to sit closer.

Kirche nodded, rising to a sit. "Monmon?" There was no sign Montmorency even registered her own name. She was far too involved in her healing magic. Kirche looked back to Tabitha. "How long has she been at that?"

"She hasn't slept," Tabitha answered.

Kirche jerked her leg away, breaking Montmorency's concentration. Immediately, her leg began to feel a whole lot less pleasant. The pain returned as a dull ache.

Montmorency eyed Kirche incredulously, and tiredly. "Kirche? What's the matter?"

"What's the matter?" Kirche parroted, seeing the bags under Montmorency's blue eyes. "You haven't slept! How long have you been doing that?"

Montmorency sighed. "Well we got you up here and it was around two-thirty... I think I started around three."

Kirche gaped. "Around three? You've been doing that for –" She looked to Tabitha. "What time is it now?"

"Just after six."

"Six!? You've been doing that for three hours straight?"

Montmorency nodded weakly.

"For the love of the Founder, Monmon," Kirche cried in disbelief. "You're only a line mage! Take a break!"

Montmorency sat back, heaving out a ragged breath. "I was hoping I'd have it healed completely before you woke up."

Taking a look, Kirche realized that her wound was certainly less severe than it had been before. Rather than a hole in her shin, it was now a mere dimple. It seemed the healing magic had stirred it up and the bleeding had begun again, although it was only minimal.

Montmorency wiped the blood away. "It really wasn't that bad, like Leva said."

Kirche winced. It seemed her leg was still quite sore. "It felt pretty bad."

"What was it like?" Montmorency asked with a strange curiosity.

"Being shot?"

Montmorency nodded.

"It was strange," Kirche continued. "I didn't even realize what happened at first, it was so fast. It felt like somebody had hit me in the leg with a club, but it didn't hurt until I realized I actually had been shot. Then it burned, a lot."

Montmorency staggered over towards her own sleeping bag. "I really hope it never happens to me."

Kirche chuckled. "You should. It wasn't very pleasant." She looked around. "So where are Siesta and Louise?"

Montmorency bit her lip, and Tabitha was the one to answer. "Not back yet."

"They're not back?" Kirche said, worried. "How could they not be back by now? Something must have happened." She made to get up. "We have to go look for them."

Tabitha forced her back down. "No condition to travel."

"But –"

"Tabitha's right, Kirche," Montmorency said sternly. "You're still not in any condition to walk anywhere, and I've used up so much willpower I think I'm about to throw up."

Kirche's face flashed in disbelief. "Aren't you worried about them?"

"Of course I'm worried!" Montmorency shot back. "But I'm about to pass out, and you can't walk!" She stuck her hand out. "What would you do? Send Tabitha out all on her own?"

Kirche groaned loudly, flopping back onto her sleeping back. Montmorency was right. She was in no condition to be traipsing around the Zone, Montmorency had used far too much willpower in one sitting, and Tabitha... well Tabitha couldn't just go out by herself.

She hoped that Louise and Siesta were alright.

* * *

 _Jupiter_

 _06:35_

"We've tried everything," Siesta grumbled, stamping out yet another cigarette butt. True to her words, Siesta firmly believed that they had tried everything.

Louise sighed. It seemed that running as fast as she could through one of the fields wouldn't work either. "How long have we been down here?"

"Four hours."

Four hours... Louise let her head hang. They'd been stuck in the same room for four hours, and Louise was beginning to feel a little stir crazy. She needed out. Looking up, she thought Siesta might have been wrong, but checking her own watch revealed that Siesta was indeed right.

It was strange then, how the sky outside was still black. Shouldn't the sun have come up by now?

Louise looked on at the anomalies like she'd done over a dozen times already, thinking. "There are four of them, right?"

"Uh huh," Siesta grunted.

"What haven't we tried?"

"Nothing," Siesta said. "We tried it all, Louise."

"I'll go through them in order," Louise said.

"You did that already."

"No, but," Louise paused to think. "I mean, like from the closest to the furthest, not right to left."

"Do what you want," Siesta commented tiredly. She leaned sideways onto a pillar. "I'll be here."

Louise went on ahead, and Siesta was sure she would come back if she found the way through. Either way, Louise would be back anyways. Siesta looked up through the ceiling, knowing full well that it should be daytime.

Siesta couldn't help but let her thoughts drift back to what Louise had said, how everything that happened was because of her summoning spell. Siesta would never have thought in a million years that Louise was the sole reason she was in the Zone. Most people would hate somebody for something like that.

There was no way she could bring herself to outright hate Louise, but she couldn't get rid of the anger and resentment.

She would forgive Louise, Siesta knew. She would have already done it if she could find the words, and Louise wasn't acting so distant.

Then again, if Siesta had found out that it was her fault she had ruined a bunch of people's lives and probably damned her own country, she'd had a little turmoil brewing inside too.

Oddly, Louise hadn't come back yet.

A few flakes of worry sparked. "Louise!" Siesta called. "Hey! What are you doing?"

No response came back. Siesta jogged ahead into the small junction, and looking around, she found it vacant. When she went back into the larger room, Louise was missing still. Siesta's breathing picked up as she started to panic. There was no way Louise was just hiding somewhere. She had found a way out, and now Siesta really was stuck here all by herself. Leaning on the wall for support, Siesta clutched her rifle close.

Siesta did not want to be stuck here on her own. She did not want to die alone. "No... no..." she muttered, trying to deny the obvious.

It was almost funny. Even after spending such a long time alone, Siesta couldn't stand the thought now.

Rather than freak out, Siesta made the decision to get herself together. She looked over the room, trying to remember Louise's last idea. Pass through the anomalies in order? That just seemed so stupidly simple.

She passed through the first field and shuddered at the feeling of the light bristling against her face. She had to veer a sharp left to reach the next on the other side of the room. The next two were staggered only slightly, and then, it was the door.

Siesta's stomach twisted as she passed through. Already, she knew something was happening. The junction was different, completely straight instead of a zig-zagging passage. She passed through the next door.

Louise was there, facing away. Siesta's breath hitched. Louise looked to be staring off in awe.

Siesta couldn't blame her. Several layers of scaffolding stood surrounded by four concrete pillars that stretched towards the ceiling. The circular ceiling itself was in a state of disarray. Nearly half of it was missing, allowing sunlight to come down in orange shafts. It was jarring to know it had been night in the last room, and now it was daytime in here. Massive piles of concrete rubble dominated one side of the room, and there was no doubt that it had once been part of the ceiling. The scaffolding seemed to lead right up to the top, where the roof narrowed to a metal canopy that had been eaten away by rust.

But the most astonishing thing was that there was a little ecosystem going on down here. Small trees and bushes grew out of the floor around a small pond, looking so strangely healthy. There was an odd feeling in the room.

It felt peaceful.

Siesta stepped ahead. "Louise..."

Louise whirled around, shocked. She had her eyes on Siesta for only a few seconds before she rushed forward and entrapped Siesta's waist in a vise-like hug. "Oh thank God..." Louise breathed, her face buried in Siesta's shoulder. "I-I went back... a-and you weren't there. The room was all different, a-and –"

"It's okay, Louise," Siesta reassured her. She returned the hug, bringing one hand up to the back of Louise's head.

"I know," Louise replied. "It's just..."

"No," Siesta cut in. She bit her lip. "It's okay."

"I..." Siesta felt Louise stiffen in her arms. "I'm sorry," Louise all but whimpered. "I'm so sorry, Siesta..." Her slender frame began to quake with muffled sobs. "I'm... I-I –"

Siesta shushed the girl. "It's alright."

Louise tore away, her tear-streaked face creased in disbelief. "No! It's not alright! How can it be? Don't you understand what I'm responsible for? I... I don't even deserve to live! Let alone be forgiven!"

"Hey!" Siesta barked, glaring. "Shut up! Don't you ever say that to me!"

"It's true Siesta, I –"

Siesta grabbed the girl by her coat, pulling her in close. "I said, shut up."

Louise pried Siesta's hands off, and wiped at her cheeks. She matched Siesta's glare with her own. "Fine. Whatever."

Siesta's face softened. "Look, come on," she gestured up towards the ceiling. "We got out, alright? Let's just get back to the station and –" She found herself falling short. A deep rumbling growl echoed through the concrete passageways. Siesta stared back towards the way she had come. The room behind them was probably similar, but it was undoubtedly different than the one they had been trapped in. Who knew what was lurking around? She looked to the scaffolding, tracing the ladders with her eyes, before turning to Louise, who looked equally frightened and nervous. "Up the ladder. Let's go."

Louise gripped her rifle, flipping the selector to fully-automatic. "You go first. I'll cover you."

"No, no," Siesta argued. "You should go, I'll –"

Another growl cut through the musty air.

"Go!" Louise hissed.

Siesta slung her rifle over her shoulder. "I'll cover you when I get to the first landing."

Louise nodded, and kept her eyes on the door. Siesta had only gotten about halfway up the ladder when Louise heard the clicking of claws on the concrete. She trained her rifle, ready to unleash a torrent of lead into whatever decided to appear.

A pseudodog burst forth from the darkness, teeth bared and spittle flying. The pseudodog was an ugly beast. It was missing patches of fur all over, and its unnaturally evil-looking face was almost flat. It's lips were pulled back, taught, exposing gums and disturbingly sharp teeth.

Louise's carbine snorted and bucked in a burst, but the dog wasn't torn to shreds.

The dog just disappeared in a wisp of ethereal smoke.

Louise stared blankly. "Uh... Siesta? Are you seeing this?"

Siesta had stopped on the ladder. "Shit!" She continued her ascension with newfound energy. "It's a psy-dog!"

"A what?" Louise called back, balking. A ringing hit her ears that blurred her vision, much like how the controller had affected her in Zaton. Siesta's reply came muffled, but Louise could hear enough to know she had merely repeated herself.

Three more dogs came in, one right after another. They all disappeared at the hand of Louise's bullets.

"Siesta!" Louise yelled as the echo faded. "Are they even real?"

Siesta reached the first landing on the scaffold. "Most of them aren't!"

With that logic, Louise figured she was just wasting ammo. "Then what's the point for me to shoot them?" She cried.

"Well one of them is real!" Siesta pointed out, readying her rifle. "Come on! Get your ass up here!"

Louise scrambled for the ladder as the sounds of several more dogs grew closer. The thunderous cracks of Siesta's rifle drowned them out, and Louise kept all of her attention on making it up the ladder.

She heard Siesta swear. "Louise! Watch out!"

With horror, Louise saw one of two dogs that had gotten past Siesta leap towards her. She desperately kicked at the beast as it arced through the air, and was thankful to find it vanish instantly. The next dog, however, did not vanish when Louise kicked at it. The psy-dog latched onto her boot, sinking its teeth through the leather, and into her flesh.

Louise howled out in pain, barely keeping her grip on the ladder. If she let go, she knew the dog would go right for her throat, and that would be it. She swung her leg, trying to dislodge the beast. It took a few very painful swings to get the dog to let go, and when it did, the four-legged beast was sent reeling straight into one of the nearby concrete pillars. It hit the ground, whimpering as it scurried away in a retreat.

Siesta fired after it, her bullets tearing up dirt and concrete. "Yeah!" She shouted at the dog. "That's right! Fuck you, ya dirty bitch!"

Louise struggled up the ladder grimacing and groaning. Siesta rushed over to pull her up.

"Are you alright?" Siesta asked, concerned. "Did it get through your boot?"

"Yes," Louise ground out, resting on her bottom. The ringing the psy-dog had brought was steadily fading as she worked at her laces. She pulled her boot away, observing the damage done. Her sock was normally white, stained yellow in splotches from sweat, but now it was slowly soaking crimson. Louise pulled the sock away, hissing. The wounds were on either side of her slender foot, but it seemed her boot had acted well enough as armor to prevent her wounds from becoming too grievous.

Kneeling, Siesta sympathetically winced. "Shit."

"You don't have any bandages, do you?"

Siesta shook her head. The bandages were in her backpack, which was probably in Yanov Station by now. "I don't." But she did have an idea. "Hold up. I've got something that'll work." Louise watched as Siesta stripped off her plate carrier and upper half of her stalker suit. She took a knife to her t-shirt, tearing away an entire sleeve.

"Siesta!" Louise groaned. "You've ruined your shirt!"

"Oh fuck the shirt," Siesta grumbled, getting to work at wrapping the remnants of her sleeve around Louise's foot. "I can get another one for like a hundred rubles. You need a new boot."

"Its fine," Louise breathed, flapping her hand. "Just a few holes."

"You won't say that when you step in a puddle," Siesta pointed out. She secured the makeshift bandages tight. Louise hissed. "Can you walk?"

Sliding her boot back on, Louise got to her feet and tested her weight. It hurt enough to warrant not wanting to walk, she felt. "I can walk. It just won't be very pleasant."

"Sure," Siesta said as she threw her gear back on. She motioned to the ladder leading to the next landing. "You go up first. If you fall, I'll catch you."

Louise mounted the ladder. "Oh really? Just like last time?"

"Yeah, except hopefully you don't bust my freaking lip again."

That got a scoff out of the pink-haired mage. She clambered up the ladder, hissing with every second step. The ladder led her up through the roof, into the blessed warmth of the morning sun. The concrete structure jutting out of the earth was flat and circular, and the small annex on top was where Louise crawled out of.

She had no idea where they were right now, and she didn't care. She could have kissed the grass outside.

Siesta emerged not long after. She practically sprinted past Louise and jumped down to the ground. Louise had to ease herself off the edge on her bottom, wary of the flare of pain that would undoubtedly shoot through her foot.

And it had shot through with fury. Louse stumbled forward, and Siesta was only just in time to keep her from falling flat on her face. Louise supposed that Montmorency would have some work ahead, with Kirche's leg, and now this bitten foot.

Louise hoped it wouldn't get infected. Healing magic would keep that at bay, she knew.

"Come on," Siesta urged, steadying the girl. "Let's go and get some friggin' sleep."

There was no way Louise could argue with something like that, especially after last night. She was thoroughly bushed. She limped after her fellow stalker, her rifle gripped tight. It would be a long walk.

* * *

 _Yanov Station_

 _07:42_

When Tabitha heard the doors swing open for what had to be the hundredth time that morning, she as sure it was just another group of stalkers strolling in for some breakfast. The second she saw was it was Siesta and Louise she was on her feet, practically running across the station lobby.

Siesta slogged through the door like somebody who hadn't slept in a week. Louise moved in a similar way, and her limp was all too obvious.

"What happened?" Tabitha asked instantly, looking between the two girls. "Where were you?"

Louise looked over the room behind Tabitha. Montmorency and Kirche were nowhere to be seen. Siesta answered first. "You don't wanna know," she grumbled tiredly.

As Siesta brushed past, heading towards the bar, Louise stopped. "Where are the others?"

"Upstairs. Asleep."

Louise sighed dreamily. "Sleep," she dragged out. "Did Montmorency start healing Kirche?"

Tabitha nodded. "All night. She didn't sleep."

So Montmorency was likely properly pooped then. Louise understood willpower depletion. "I'll just go see Bonesetter then."

Tabitha pointed. "Did something happen to your leg?"

"Yes," Louise answered unhappily. "My foot was bitten by a dog. A psy-dog no less."

The Gallian native had heard of psy-dogs on a few occasions. They seemed a rather unpleasant creature to run into, especially in a dark underground passageway. "Killed it?" Tabitha asked.

Louise shrugged. "No. I kicked it into a pillar, and then Siesta scared it off by shooting at it." She watched as Siesta left the bar with an entire bottle of vodka in her possession and made for the stairs. Just as Siesta disappeared, Louise heard somebody approaching.

"Hey!" Louise looked to find Torba walking over. "So you found a way out, huh?"

She noted that Torba looked pretty tired, much like Tabitha. If Louise had a mirror she'd know she looked about ten times worse. "We did," Louise answered. "After much searching."

"So what year are you from?" Torba asked dryly. "Has to be like, 1600, from the way you freakin' talk."

Louise just rolled her eyes at Torba's unintentionally accurate jab. While she made her way over to Bonesetter's office to have her foot cleaned and bandaged, Siesta was huffing it upstairs with her bottle of vodka ripe for the drinking.

The bottle was uncapped once Siesta hit the top of the stairs, and she downed a hearty swig. The harshness of the drink was lost on her after so many years – she may as well have just been drinking water.

She found the room she had been calling home, finding the door closed. Siesta opened the door so roughly it slammed against the wall so hard the knob left a dent in the mouldy drywall.

Kirche and Montmorency both sprung up in their sleeping bags out of fright. Kirche had a Makarov grasped in her hand.

Siesta smiled sheepishly. "So I didn't realize you guys were sleeping."

The two awoken girls flopped back, breathing sighs of relief. "Thank God," Kirche breathed. "That you're back."

Siesta scoffed. "God had nothing to do with it," she grunted, taking another swig. "That one's on Louise."

"Oh?" Montmorency said curiously. "Louise found the way out of there?"

"She did," Siesta nodded.

"Then what took you two so long?" Montmorency asked, exasperated. "We were worried sick!"

Siesta laughed. "Oh, you would not believe what happened to us." She took another drink. She needed it. Siesta had the feeling that things between herself and Louise were going to be a quite a bit awkward and strained in the days to come.

* * *

 _Albion_

 _20:33_

The slog back to the inn was uneventful as always, as had been the entirety of the last week or so. Alexander simply worked in the days, and came back to the rented room to sleep at night. Matilda had taken to serving at the inn's bar occasionally, and Alexander wished they had been looking for somebody when he had been searching for work. At least then he wouldn't have so much of a walk.

While Alexander and Matilda worked, Tiffania didn't do much of anything. Her life consisted mostly of reading, sleeping, and looking out the window. Alexander thought she must have been going crazy from boredom by now.

Either way, she never once complained.

The thought of traveling to Tristania hadn't left his mind. He hadn't the slightest idea why Matilda wanted him to remain. It was pretty obvious she didn't like him that way, and she could hold her own, so she didn't need him around to protect them.

So he wondered. He had said to Matilda that he wasn't on a time constraint, but he had to go sooner rather than later. If Tristain was becoming as dangerous as he heard, then this Éléonore de la Valliére certainly ran the risk of waking up with a bloodsucker in her room.

However, when Alexander finally returned to the small room at the inn, it seemed he wouldn't have to bring up the subject to Matilda. She and Tiffania were both waiting for him.

Alexander slowly closed the door. "Uh, hey?"

"We've been talking," Matilda started instantly. She sat on the bed with Tiffania, both of them facing the door. Tiffania nodded as if to confirm the legitimacy of Matilda's statement. "About you wanting to go to Tristain."

"Oh, that." Alexander shrugged. "Alright, what about it?"

Matilda sighed, causing a sheepish look to cross Tiffania's face. "Tiffania has somehow managed to convince me that she should see more of the world," Matilda explained tiredly. "Despite all of the dangers."

"See more of the world?" Alexander almost scoffed. He looked to Tiffania. "You want see more of the world?"

Tiffania nodded confidently. "I lived in that cabin almost my entire life. I've only ever gone as far as this town." She smiled dreamily. "I want to see the ocean."

Alexander looked to Matilda with a cocked eyebrow. "You agreed to that?"

Tiffania looked like she wanted to add something, but Matilda beat her. "Well, I mean. I don't see any reason why we can't go with you to Rosais." Seeing Alexander's confused look, she elaborated. "Rosais is a port city. You can get a ship there to Tristain."

He made a noise of understanding. "That's good to know," he commented. "Which direction is that in, by the way?"

Matilda smirked. "See? That's why you need us Mr. Alexander," she joked mockingly. "Without us, you wouldn't know your arse from your elbows."

The half-elf in the room covered her mouth. "Matilda!" She gasped.

That got a laugh out of Alexander. "Yeah, well I'm sure I could have asked for directions anyway."

"Oh? I thought men never asked for directions?" Matilda quipped with a grin.

"I'm not that stubborn," Alexander pointed out. He crossed his arms. "But if you want to lead me to this port, then I won't stop you."

"Then in a few days' time we'll leave," Matilda announced. "I'll use that time to gather some supplies together. And we'll need horses."

Alexander pursed his lips. "Uh, horses?"

Matilda eyed him like he was completely daft. "Well, yes, unless you'd like to walk the entire way. It's nearly halfway across the country."

"I've never ridden a horse."

Matilda's shoulders dropped. "You've never ridden a horse? How do you even get around where you're from?"

He flapped a hand. "Um, that's a story for another time."

"As you say," Matilda said. She stood. "I've got some errands to run."

"Really?" Alexander remarked skeptically.

Matilda rolled her eyes and sighed. "Alright, fine. I'm going to steal things and make money. Don't tell anybody."

Alexander shrugged and stepped aside to let her out. Before she could leave, Matilda looked back towards Tiffania.

"There, you've gotten your wish," Matilda said to her. "You get to go on an adventure. Happy?"

Tiffania smiled wide. "Yes. I am."

After Matilda's departure, Alexander eyed Tiffania. "I never pictured you as an adventurer."

"Well I never pictured you as somebody who could prepare tea. You seemed much manlier than that," Tiffania countered jokingly.

Alexander huffed. Were the not-so-serious exchanges he and Matilda had rubbing off on her? "Come on. What's wrong with liking tea? Tea is manly. Makes hairs grow on your chest."

Tiffania broke into light giggles.

* * *

 _A/N: This is going to take more chapters than I thought. Also, upcoming events have been changed again. The next act will not be called 'Winter' like I said. That one's gonna come after the next act, which was also originally planned to be part of 'The Life of a Stalker'. I actually forgot about that part of the story for a little while._

 _Oops._

 _Also, to answer your question MadnessLover, yes, and no. I know all of the big plot points, and I know how it ends, the fates of the characters, and all of that, but I don't necessarily know everything that's going to happen along the way. The little things, the conversations, the small encounters, things like that, happen as the story evolves. I guess it's kind of an organic process, but I like I said, I know what's supposed to happen. Each act has their own 'General Outline', which is a basically a long-ass notepad file of every big event that's supposed to happen._

 _For the little things I think of randomly, I write those down too. I've used many already, and I have many more ready to slot in. There's another notepad file full of those too. Many of them are things Siesta says. When Siesta and Louise came up against the psy-dog, I had planned for Siesta to say 'fuck you ya dirty bitch!' to something, but not necessarily that dog. I thought it was a good time to use it._

 _I'll stop before I go on for too long. Just a little insight into my writing process I suppose._

 _Oh yeah, and Siesta and Louise didn't find the heart of the Oasis. I suppose somebody else must have taken it already._


	31. The Road to Pripyat VI

_The Road to Pripyat VI_

 _Yanov Station_

 _September 21st, 2012_

 _11:32_

"So then I told him 'you couldn't hit water if you fell out of a friggin' boat'," Siesta was saying. She laughed at her own comment, but she wasn't alone. It had gotten a few chuckles from Kirche, a roll of the eyes from Montmorency, and an even stare from Tabitha.

Louise hadn't been paying much attention as Siesta went on about her days as a stalker. She had her own things to tend to. The first was the disassembled carbine on the table, and the second was the burning cigarette in her mouth. She had considered that perhaps trying one of Siesta's cigarettes last week had been a mistake, because she had been smoking like a chimney ever since.

"You shouldn't have started doing that."

Louise looked up to meet Montmorency's disapproving gaze. Kirche and Siesta were still chatting amiably about the guys they thought were cute around the station. Louise slid the reassembled bolt carrier into the upper receiver. "Really?" She said.

"It's unbecoming of you," Montmorency added

"You really think that this is unbecoming of me?" Louise snorted. She crushed the cigarette butt in the nearby makeshift ashtray – a cut down soda can. It was so full the cigarette butts were beginning to bulge out of the top. "Next you'll tell me I shouldn't shoot people, and try to reason things out with words."

"Well that's the way it should be," Montmorency pointed out with a grumble. She crossed her arms. "That's how civilized human beings do things."

Louise hummed, mating the M4A1's upper and lower receivers. She secured the pins in place, and then gave the charging handle a few pulls.

Kirche and Siesta were still quite involved in their own conversation, which had migrated from cute boys to ideas for drinking games. Montmorency sighed. "What's been going on with you lately?" She asked quietly, leaning forward. "You've been acting strange."

Upturning a palm, Louise shrugged. "What are you talking about? I've been fine." She set her carbine to lean against the table.

"You've been fine?" Montmorency scoffed. She pointed, as if it were obvious. "You've taken up smoking for God's sake!"

How could Louise not? For the longest time she had the most horrible feeling in the back of her mind about what could be happening in Tristain because of her failure. It always nagged her, day and night, but now it was hitting her harder than ever. What Siesta said when they were trapped underground hadn't left her.

 _You ruined my fucking life._

Louise could hardly look Siesta in the eye anymore. Even staring the others in the face was an arduous task from time to time. She had ruined all of their lives, but why didn't they hate her for it? It confused her to no end, but she didn't dare ask for fear of finding out that everybody truly did hate her behind her back. With that thought in mind, Louise did the same thing she'd been doing all week. She took her leave without a word to be said.

Watching her go, Siesta slumped forward with her face in hands, grounding out a long and tired obscenity. Kirche let out an equally tired sigh. "What is happening with her?" Kirche asked.

Siesta let her forearms fall limply to the table, resulting in two loud thuds. It got everybody's attention rather quickly. "I might as well just tell you guys."

Sitting straight across the table, Tabitha's eyes narrowed. "Tell us what?"

"When I was trapped underground with Louise," Siesta said. "We got to talking, about... y'know, everything."

Kirche nodded. "Sure."

"She asked me what year I was from," Siesta continued. She noticed both Kirche and Montmorency visibly tense. "Yeah, you get it now, huh? It's pretty messed up, but it is what it is."

"So, that's what she's upset about?" Montmorency asked. "Because you know?"

"Well I kind of got mad," Siesta revealed, wincing. "And I may or may not have told her she ruined my life."

Kirche and Montmorency both groaned loudly. Even Tabitha sighed and rubbed at her forehead. "Siesta..." Kirche said slowly.

"What?" Siesta said defensively. "The heck was I supposed to do? I got mad! I apologized afterward!"

"It doesn't seem to have worked very well," Montmorency pointed out.

"No shit," Siesta shot back. She crossed her arms. "Like, what do I do now? Tell her it's alright again? I even comforted her while she cried in my arms! But... I, uh, did tell her to shut up after that..."

Montmorency balked, as did Kirche. "Siesta!" They both exclaimed in unison.

"What? I'm sorry!"

Kirche rolled her eyes. "Don't apologize to us. What is the matter with you?"

"Really," Montmorency nodded in agreement. "She cried in your arms, and you tell her to shut up? Who does that?"

"No – but – " Siesta let out a loud growl of frustration. "You don't get the situation." She leaned forward, speaking in a lower voice, although it was a touch pointless. They were speaking in Tristanian. "She was talking about how she didn't deserve to live, stuff like that."

Montmorency's shoulders fell. She stared off blankly. "Oh."

"You... don't think she would do that, do you?" Kirche said. The worry practically dripped from her voice.

Siesta stared back incredulously. "Kill herself? No. There's no way."

Tabitha decided to speak up. "Should keep an eye on her." All eyes turned on the Gallian. She glanced between everyone at the table. "Just in case."

"Tabitha," Siesta said firmly. "Come on. You seriously don't think she'd –"

"Tristain is destroyed as we know it," Tabitha cut in. "We're here because of her. How would you feel?"

Kirche almost glared. "Don't tell me you're blaming her."

"Is her fault, technically," Tabitha pointed out. "It was an accident. I don't blame her."

Letting her head fall back, Siesta let out a lough sigh. "Some accident though, hey?"

She didn't want to, but Kirche could only agree. "I know..."

"I can't imagine how that makes her feel," Montmorency added glumly.

There was a short and tense silence before Montmorency, Siesta, Tabitha, and Kirche all rose at the same moment, their mouths opened and primed to speak. Seeing that they had all done the same thing, they faltered awkwardly.

Siesta scratched the back of her neck, sheepish. "Let's, uh, go talk to her."

The remainder of the group nodded their agreement, and they decided to have a quick look around the station. They figured Louise wouldn't have gone very far, and the assumption was that she had just gone upstairs, back to their room. When Siesta swung the door inward, she found that their room was suspiciously vacant. With that discovery, they split up.

Siesta decided to check out the north wing, Freedom's side of the station. It was the last place she had seen Louise go.

She took the stairs down, her head swiveling so much it might as well have been on a ball bearing. She checked the boiler and storage rooms downstairs, Freedom's bunk rooms on the ground floor, and she even poked her head into Loki's office.

She met with the others in the lobby, who had similarly come up short.

Kirche looked seriously worried as she spoke. "She wasn't anywhere on Duty's side. Nobody's seen her. Did you ask Freedom?"

"I looked around," Siesta replied. "But I didn't ask anybody. She's not there anyway."

"Well somebody must have seen where she went," Montmorency pointed out.

Siesta thought it was a little strange for Montmorency to insist on a second venture into the north wing. The blonde made her distaste for Freedom's end of the station known loud and clear on many occasions. Siesta didn't really know why – she had never asked – but she thought it was probably due to the blue-grey haze of pot smoke hugging at the ceilings. Siesta didn't mind that so much. She didn't partake nearly as much as she had at one time, but being around it didn't bother her in the least.

Nobody seemed to have seen Louise, until they bumped into Ganja. The redness in his eyes was a tell-tale sign that he had been busy. "What's up?" He greeted casually. "You lookin' to buy some?"

Montmorency immediately opened her mouth to protest, but Siesta beat her to the punch. "Yeah, actually, you got a couple joints?"

Montmorency balked. "Siesta!" She hissed. "What do you think you're doing?"

Siesta shrugged as if she had done nothing wrong. "What? I'm just buying a couple joints."

Scoffing, Montmorency rolled her eyes and shook her head. Tabitha didn't seem much amused, but Kirche did let out a little snort.

Siesta's transaction took only a few moments. "So," she began after pocketing the joints. "You see Louise around?"

Ganja laughed, which quickly trailed off. "...Uh... which one was she again?"

"The pink-haired one," Siesta said flatly.

"Oh yeah!" Ganja said, strangely astonished. "I think she came through and went out the side door, like, ten minutes ago."

That wasn't what Siesta wanted to hear. Nevertheless, she thanked the man and dragged the others past Bonesetter's office and out the narrow side entrance. Outside, the rail yard was void of any visible life. Siesta mentally groaned. If Louise was hiding out somewhere around here, it would take close to forever to search through all the abandoned box cars, derelict engines, and crumbling warehouses.

"Alright," Siesta began, facing the others. "Tabitha and I will search this end of the yard. You two take the other side."

Kirche and Montmorency nodded and split off, circling around the stationhouse to peruse the south side of the rail yard. Siesta had suspected Tabitha wouldn't be too happy to be separated from Kirche, but if that were truly the case then the Gallian didn't do much in the way of showing it.

Tabitha brandished the Sudaev, unfurled the folding stock, and looked to Siesta for guidance. "I'll go left," Siesta advised. "You go right." Tabitha gave a silent nod and hooked around, disappearing behind a long row of train cars.

By herself, Siesta advanced north towards a warehouse with a caved in roof. There wasn't much to speak of in the warehouse itself, only the remains of the collapsed roof. It was also clearly absent of any pink-haired mages. After exiting the other end of the building Siesta could see a fairly large structure off in the distance nestled against a steep hillside. Stalkers in the area had named it 'the cooling tower'.

Or perhaps it had already been called that. Siesta wasn't sure.

The single, tall building had a staggered roof. One side of the structure was made of red brick, while the other was the flat color of concrete, and two smoke stacks rose straight up, one tall and fat, the other short and thin. Siesta thought it almost looked like somebody had squished two different buildings right up against one another. Starting at one side of

the building was a quarter-circle comprised of steep sections of sloped concrete, and Siesta remembered them stretching down to a basin of steel mesh grates.

Siesta was sure it would look like one of those massive grand theaters if there were actually seats. The cooling tower was an odd-looking place, and Siesta thought it was extremely creepy. Whenever she got near the place and her radio was on she started getting fragmented anxious transmissions from a group of lost stalkers. In any normal situation Siesta might have a go at looking for them, but it had quickly become apparent that something was amiss when the transmission kept repeating itself over and over.

Stalkers called them ghost transmissions. Whoever had been calling for help was long dead, trapped somewhere within a space anomaly. Just the thought made Siesta shudder. She'd had enough of space anomalies for one lifetime.

A little ways ahead Siesta saw Tabitha come out from around the nose of a diesel locomotive. The shrug the blue-haired mage gave told Siesta that she hadn't found anything.

Siesta met the girl partway. "Nothing?"

Tabitha shook her head.

Siesta pointed off towards the cooling tower. "I'm gonna take a walk that way," she told Tabitha. "Go back and tell Kirche and Monty where I'm going."

Those words gave Tabitha pause. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, yeah," Siesta said flippantly. "Don't worry. I'll be gone for like ten minutes, max."

Tabitha stared towards the cooling tower. "Think she's there?"

Siesta shrugged as she started walking. "I dunno," she called over her shoulder. "Guess I'll find out, huh?"

She left Tabitha behind, striding out through the long wide-open field rather than taking the road. There wasn't much in the way of cover; a few shallow dips in the ground, small hills, trees, and the occasional boulder. Siesta kept her eyes on the cooling tower as she approached, and noticed a small shape on top of the rim of sloped concrete. Siesta was instantly on her stomach behind a grassy lump.

Wondering if she'd been spotted, Siesta took a cautious approach. She unsheathed the G3's bayonet from her vest and removed her helmet. She used the blade to tentatively ease her helmet up into view and bob it about.

Nothing happened. If somebody had seen her, then they either didn't care, or knew what she was doing.

The binoculars came out, and Siesta took and chance and peeked up over the grass. She searched for the shape, and found it fast. It was a person, alright, but it wasn't anyone that would put a bullet in her. Siesta made out the bright shade of Louise's hair. She was sitting near the edge with her feet dangling, and looked to be drinking something.

Flabbergasted, Siesta shot to her feet and spread her arms as if to say, 'what the hell, Louise?'

Siesta didn't check to see whether Louise actually saw her or not. She threw on her helmet and began stomping across the field. Her radio buzzed to life once the cooling tower began to loom overhead. Siesta thought for a second it might have been Louise, but it wasn't.

 _"– of water two days ago. We need –"_

Siesta turned off her radio.

A long set of concrete stairs led up the hill to the top of the concrete slope. She jogged up, skipping steps at a time, and finding herself becoming surprisingly winded. Siesta supposed she could add something else to the list of things she really didn't like; pseudogiants, controllers, space anomalies, ghost transmissions, and now stairs.

Someday, Siesta hoped she could find a working elevator.

Siesta touched off at the top and made brisk strides towards Louise. The pink-haired girl herself was sitting at the edge of the concrete in what looked like a rather precarious spot. The safety railing in that area had fallen away, down the slope, and right through the grate at the bottom into the black abyss beyond. Louise had a half-empty bottle of Cossacks in one hand, and a burning cigarette in the other. She didn't look on at Siesta's approach – but she had to have known – she just stared straight out into the distance.

"What the heck are you doing?" Siesta asked, a little angrily. "You come all the way out here for no reason?"

Louise still didn't look. She held up the bottle. "Jus' havin' a coupla drinks Siesta," she slurred. Siesta noticed that Louise's cigarette had burned down about halfway, but she had somehow neglected to flick away the ashes.

"And you're loaded," Siesta observed. "That's great."

"Hey!" Louise suddenly shouted, pointing. "You drink all of the time!"

Siesta motioned around. "Not out in the middle of the friggin' Zone!" She didn't wait for Louise's response. Siesta grabbed the girl under her arms and hauled her backward, away from the edge.

"Wha –" Louise squirmed, inadvertently dropping her cigarette off the edge. "Siesta! Don't – stop!"

"Don't stop?" Siesta asked. "Alright. Whatever you say."

With Louise a few feet away from the edge, Siesta released her. "What's your problem? Huh?" Louise growled.

"You were freaking me out sitting that close to the edge," Siesta explained.

Louise brought up her hand to draw from her cigarette, and only just discovered it was missing. "You stole my cigarette!"

"You dropped it," Siesta pointed out grumpily. She crossed her arms. "So go on. Explain yourself."

Struggling to her feet, Louise stumbled a few steps, and then promptly threw up. Siesta simply watched as Louise fell down to her knees and furiously emptied her stomach. It was almost all clear liquid, presumably the vodka she'd just consumed. When she finished vomiting, Louise fell back on her bottom, shuffled away from the bile, and got out a cigarette. She lit it with shaking hands. She searched for her bottle of vodka but found that when she had fallen, she'd broken it. Louise almost wanted to cry.

"I jus' wanted some air," Louise said meekly, keeping her eyes away from Siesta's.

Siesta spread her arms. "Louise there's fucking air everywhere! You didn't have to come out here!" Louise just grumbled incoherently. Siesta sighed, and deflated. She sat nearby. "We're worried about you, y'know."

Louise flapped a hand dismissively, and drunkenly. "Yeah, yeah."

She chuckled with a nervous edge. "The others think you might... you know," Siesta said.

The pink-haired drunk delivered Siesta a confused glance. "...Wha'?"

Siesta pantomimed a gun with her hand, put it against her head, dropped her thumb, and mimicked a gunshot with her mouth.

Louise had been drawing from her cigarette, and upon realizing what Siesta meant, she inhaled sharply, taking in much more smoke than she meant to and sending herself into a coughing fit. "Are you –" She coughed again. "Joking or something?"

"Well I mean, you did say underground that you didn't deserve to live and stuff –"

"I was just upset for God's sake!" Louise cut in, loudly. She remembered, and deflated. "Well... you know, for a little while there I really didn't want to live –"

"Louise I swear," Siesta growled, glaring. "If you keep on talking like that I'll beat your fucking tits off."

Louise rounded on her. "Well it's a good thing I don't have any then!" She shouted, and Siesta winced a little. Louise sighed. "I know I don't want to die, Siesta. Every time we have to fight, every single part of me is screaming to stay alive."

Siesta reached and drew Louise into a one-armed sideways hug, and Louise subsequently rested her head against Siesta's shoulder. "It's okay, alright?" Siesta said. "We don't blame you."

"You should."

"But we don't," Siesta assured her.

Louise exhaled deeply, remaining silent for a few minutes. Just sitting here like this, the human contact was a

reassuring thing. She threw the cigarette butt away.

"We should go back," Siesta advised. "The others are out looking around."

* * *

Once everybody was back in Yanov Station, Louise, still properly tanked, declared that she was going upstairs to pass out. Montmorency's time of the month seemed to have begun hitting her particularly hard with cramps during the course of searching through the rail yard, so she volunteered to go with her. Siesta felt that was fair enough, so she got herself soda from Hawaiian and sat with Kirche and Tabitha.

"So," Kirche started as soon as Siesta seated herself. "What are you going to do with those joints you bought?"

Siesta furrowed her brow. "What do you think? I'm going to smoke them, obviously."

"No kidding." Kirche rolled her eyes. "I mean when?"

"I don't know," Siesta said, taking a swig from her can. "I mean, I was going to smoke them with Louise, but she was way too wasted." She snorted. "Why? Do you want to try it?"

Kirche shrugged. "I don't know. It seemed kind of interesting when Louise did it."

Siesta eyed her. Tabitha didn't seem to have any qualms, but then again, Tabitha never really did. "Aren't you adventurous?"

"I suppose," Kirche half-heartedly agreed. "I may as well try some new things before I get shot in my face, rather than my leg." Siesta heard a dull smack underneath the table, and Kirche yelped out loud from the impact of Tabitha's sudden kick. "Tabitha! That hurts!"

Siesta laughed, not so much for the physical harm done to Kirche, but for the continuously flat expression on Tabitha's face. As her laughter trailed off, she noticed somebody she really didn't like. Magpie strolled across the station, and while Siesta would have preferred to ignore him, she couldn't help but glare at the back of his chubby head. She watched as he made his way over to a lone stalker sitting in a dark corner of the station and seemingly delivered some news. It must have been some bad news, because as Magpie was sauntering back over to Freedom's side of the station, the stalker looked rather distraught.

She wondered what that jerk-off had done now.

* * *

Siesta left Kirche and Tabitha about ten minutes later, long enough to finish her soda and trade a few jabs with Kirche. She sought out that stalker sitting in the corner, who hadn't moved in the slightest, and unceremoniously dropped down into the chair opposite.

The man started. He had been staring down at the table, looking absolutely stressed. Siesta's helmet cast a dim shadow over her eyes in this dank corner. Her face was occasionally brightened by the burning cherry on the end of her cigarette.

"'Sup?" Siesta casually greeted.

The man looked around nervously. He donned a worn jacket, and a face covered in untamed beard. "U-um... nothing?"

Siesta leaned forward. "Really?"

"Did... have you come for the money?"

Siesta's brow rose in surprise. "No? I didn't come for any money." She snorted. "But if you want to give me some to get rid of me I won't say no."

The man stared. "Are you, uh... Kirche?"

Siesta's face went flat. "No. I'm Siesta."

"Oh."

"So what did that guy want with you?"

The stalker looked surprised. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because that guy's a douche and I don't like him," Siesta grunted, crossing her arms. "What do they call you?"

"Vano," he introduced. "Do... you think you can help me?"

Siesta gave a noncommittal shrug. "Depends."

Vano sighed. "Well, I had an old suit that was starting to wear out, so I figured I needed a new one. Soon as I thought that, I saw a brand spanking new suit for sale. It had a closed-cycle respiratory module and everything. I counted my money but I came up short every time. But Jack, the seller, said 'Don't worry Vano you can pay me the rest later!' So I thought, 'what a nice guy' and all that..."

"Who is Jack?" Siesta interrupted.

Vano expressed a very visible wince. "...He's the leader of the bandits at the checkpoint."

Siesta sighed through her nose and took a long draw from her cigarette. "Continue."

"I sold my old suit, got all my cash, and brought it to him," Vano went on. "Jack was like, 'well done Vano, but what about the interest?' I thought, 'yeah, he's right. I need to get the interest to him.' I got together some more cash and brought it to him. When I go there he said, 'while you were out, the interest built up.' It seems the interest grows so fast that I can't keep up. I had to pawn the new suit and my weapons too. So I figured I needed some help, so I went to Freedom and Flint volunteered to take the cash I gathered up and go talk out a deal with the bandits."

Siesta groaned internally, putting the pieces together. Flint was the name Magpie had begun using during his tour as a Freedom stalker, and Siesta could only guess that he had screwed Vano over pretty thoroughly.

"When he came back he told me the bandits roughed him up and took all the cash from him, and now I owe even more," Vano continued. "So... do you think you can help me?"

"You're asking a girl for help?" Siesta pointed out jokingly. She smirked. "Come on, Vano."

Vano blanched. "W-well... I mean, uh..."

Siesta laughed. "Kidding, relax." She leaned back in her chair. "I'm thinking Flint gave you the dick pretty hard, and he's still got your money."

"What? No," Vano sputtered. "He..." He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands with a deep sigh. "Son of a bitch..."

"So," Siesta continued. "I think I might be able to solve this little problem. How much did you give to Flint?"

"Twenty-two thousand."

A wolf-like grin spread across Siesta's face. She stood, adjusting her vest. "I'll take half." Before Vano could say any more, she turned on her heel and strode away.

* * *

Siesta had waited until the next morning to put any kind of plan into action. She would have liked to get to work right away, but she wanted a full crew, and Louise's drunkenness and Montmorency's complaints of cramps had prevented such a move.

Now, they were working their way south along a roadway towards one of the old military checkpoints currently occupied by a small group of bandits. The others had gone along with Siesta's plan well enough, although Louise had grumpily questioned when exactly it was they had become the force of good in the Zone.

Apparently Louise firmly believed that the Zone was no place for heroes. Siesta agreed, but she certainly didn't mind helping someone out if cash was involved.

Nearing the crest of a rise in the roadway, the chain-link fences of the checkpoint eased into view. Siesta signaled a halt, and ducked down out of view. "Okay, it's just over there."

Everybody crouched, and Montmorency was the first to speak. "Are you sure we should be doing this?"

"Come on, Monty," Siesta chided. "Don't you want to be one of the good guys?"

"We're not guys," Louise pointed out grumpily.

Montmorency groaned. "Louise..."

"Look, we're not going in freakin' guns blazing," Siesta said tiredly. "I'll take Louise and we'll go in and –"

Louise cut in. "Wait, wait. We're going in? Just the two of us?"

"We're not going to shoot up the place!" Siesta hissed. "We're going to just ask them if Magpie came by or not."

"Then what about the rest of us?" Kirche piped up.

"You three are gonna go around on the left," Siesta explained. She looked to Tabitha. "If you can't find a way through the fence, use your magic and make one." Tabitha nodded in affirmation. "Just wait around there, and if things go sour you take the bandits by surprise."

Montmorency looked concerned. "How will we know if things go wrong?"

"I think you'll hear it," Siesta answered. She rose. "Let's do it."

Kirche, Montmorency, and Tabitha split off without another word, leaving Siesta and Louise alone. They began walking the road, and the bandits watching them were plainly visible. "What if they just shoot us?" Louise hissed.

"Stay behind me," Siesta said.

"Oh how noble of you," Louise said mockingly. "Willing to take a bullet for me, are you?"

"Fuck you," Siesta grunted. "My plate would stop it."

"Your... plate?"

Siesta rapped her vest, a few solid thunks. "My vest is a plate carrier. It'll stop a couple of rifle rounds."

"Really?" Louise asked, surprised. She'd seen bullets go through practically everything there was to go through. She'd seen them tear apart cinderblock walls, and plow right through steel. In another life, Louise had no idea a lead projectile would even go through a tabletop. "What in the world is it made of?"

"It's ceramic."

Louise snorted. The checkpoint closed in. "What the hell is that, Siesta?"

"Hey, I don't know," Siesta admitted. "All I care about is that it's another layer that might keep me alive."

Louise supposed that was a good thing. She'd have to get herself something like that. She looked over the checkpoint, observing the layout of the buildings. There were two on the left side of the road, a building with two floors that could potentially serve as a watchtower, and a much smaller red brick building with bundles of thick electrical cables drooping down to it from a wooden pole. Louise would have liked to know more about things like electricity and running water, but they were hard subjects to read up on when there wasn't any reading material available, and asking somebody who actually knew better would make her seem like she was completely daft.

She moved her eyes to the other side of the road, where there was only one building. Certainly it was much larger in area than the two-floored building, but it had only one floor. A few abandoned vehicles were left sitting around, including one UAZ jeep that looked to have moved recently from the tire tracks left in the mud.

The bandits looked to be coming to meet them. There were only three. Louise could see another on the balcony of the watch tower, but no more. The bandits didn't raise their rifles, but they looked ready to do so.

"What the hell do you want?" One of the bandits barked.

Siesta was sure not to make a sudden move. "We came to talk about Vano."

The bandits shared a few confused glances. The bandit who spoke turned back, shrugging. "Who the fuck is Vano?"

Siesta inserted her face into her palm. "He's the guy who owes you a shitload money."

Another bandit laughed loudly. "Oh, that guy. Go see Jack."

The first bandit motioned for them to follow, and Louise couldn't help but feel hesitant. "Hey," one of the bandits said as Louise passed. "Both of you don't have to go in there. Stay out and chill. I know how to party."

Louise glared. "Go to hell," she snapped. She had almost expected an altercation because of that, and Siesta did as well from the way her breath hitched. The bandit only laughed loudly, and sauntered off.

They moved into the building on the right side of the road, past a bandit standing behind a truck. A loaded RPG-7 was leaned against the tailgate. The hallway past the entryway was narrow and made one right-angled turn. The room at the end was a small office, complete with a desk, bookshelf, and an old couch.

And on that couch there was a man napping. The bandit roused him. "Hey, Jack. Get your ass up."

Jack rolled over with a grunt. "What in the fuck do you..." He spied Louise and Siesta, and trailed off. He pointed. "Who are they?"

"They came to talk about Vano."

"Who?"

"The dumbass that owes us for the suit."

Jack laughed. "Oh. That guy. Wait out by the door." The bandit nodded and left the room. Jack got up from the couch and stretched. "So you wanna talk about Vano's debt."

Siesta immediately got down to business. "I just need to know if some Freedom guy came around trying to pay it off for him."

Jack gave Siesta a weird look. "Uh, no. Nobody like that came by."

"Alright." Siesta turned to leave. So Magpie hadn't come here with the money, and had instead royally screwed Vano. It was a development she had seen coming, but it was one that needed proof, and she now had enough. "That's all I needed to know." She felt a hand come down on her shoulder, stopping her. She tensed.

* * *

Kirche, Montmorency, and Tabitha were waiting low in the grass outside the fence when they heard it. Four muffled pops. Seconds later, it was followed by a much longer and more rapid string. Gunfire.

Montmorency blanched. "W-was that it? Did things go wrong?"

"Obviously!" Kirche hissed. She ducked through the round hole in the fence Tabitha had created, sprinting for cover behind the stubby red brick building. She was joined by Montmorency and Tabitha seconds later. Leaning out around, she could see a handful of bandits gathered outside the building Louise and Siesta had gone into, hollering at each other. She looked to the others, and motioned them to come closer with her head. Kirche pointed as Tabitha and Montmorency peeked out. "Look. I'll take one in the middle, Tabitha go for one on the far left, and Monmon go for one on the right."

The three girls sighted in the bandits, and with three almost simultaneous shots three bandits slumped over, dead or wounded. The two remaining scattered for cover.

* * *

"This isn't going as well as I hoped," Siesta said glumly as she holstered her pistol.

Louise spared a glare over her shoulder, but it was only a short one. Jack lay on the floor, four holes punched in his chest. She kept her rifle trained on the door. "You shouldn't have shot him!"

"It wasn't my fault! He grabbed my tits! I feel violated over here!" Siesta retorted, rather loudly. "I mean, what did he think was going to happen? I'd sudden want to fuck him?"

"Oh you're going to feel violated when my boot finds its way up your arse!"

Siesta kind of wanted to laugh at that as she finished searching Jack's body. He didn't have anything much on him; a Makarov pistol and a couple thousand rubles. Siesta gladly relieved him of the latter.

"Stop stealing his things and let's go!" Louise hissed desperately.

"Hey, fuck that guy," Siesta grunted, unslinging her rifle and shouldering the beast. "He was a dick." There was a trio of staggered shots from outside, and then more shouting. Siesta grinned. "Well there's our back-up."

Louise advanced on the door, stepping over the perforated corpse of the bandit that had been waiting outside. "We're going to need it," she grumbled.

When they got outside they immediately saw the two bodies on the ground near the back of the truck, while another man was groaning and clutching at his stomach. Louise raised her rifle, and he looked like he was about to tell her to wait before she shot him straight through the chest. It appeared that the remainder of the bandits had holed up in the tall building, and were now busily pinning down the other girls.

And then, Siesta saw it. The RPG-7 was still leaned against the tailgate of the truck. She grinned a wide and wolfish grin. She had used one once before, and looking to Louise, she knew that the pink-haired mage was going to have quite an interesting first today.

"Louise!" Siesta pointed to the RPG. "Take that!"

Louise gawked. "Siesta I don't even know what that is!"

"It'll be fine! I'll show you!"

"This isn't the time!" Louise protested.

But Louise's protests were ignored. Siesta laid her rifle down, hefted up the RPG-7, and handed it off to Louise. "Put it on your shoulder," Siesta instructed. "Now aim through the scope, and blow a hole through that building."

"W-with this?" Louise felt quite unsure as she leveled the strange reticule on the second floor.

"Yeah, do it!"

Louise squeezed in on the trigger, and was surprised by a sudden loud bang, and then the RPG-7 seemed to weigh a whole lot less. It made her stumble a little, but that was far from her mind. The conical projectile barely had any time to hiss through the air before it smacked one of the corners of the building and let off a crisp blast. The hole it created wasn't huge by any means – Louise suspected she could have made a larger one if she had a wand on tap – but it was there nonetheless. She let the smoking tube fall to the ground.

Suddenly, Louise would have very much liked to have that sword wand she'd given to Kirche.

"That'll have 'em rattled," Siesta observed. She motioned for Louise to follow with a grenade in hand, and they ran out into the open. "Guys!" She called to Kirche and the others. "Come on! Let's go!"

Siesta primed her grenade and gave the explosive a hardy toss through one of the windows. There was panicked shouting from inside, and then a thunderous roar. She would have liked to see if that UAZ was drivable, but she was sure they'd be lit up like no tomorrow if they started rolling away in that thing.

They ran from the checkpoint, sprinting through the woods and tall grass.

* * *

It was a few hours later when Siesta confidently proclaimed that the second part of her plan was to be put into action. In true Siesta fashion, it seemed the former maid was going to wait until the very last minute to inform everybody of what that plan actually was. This time around, Louise wasn't having any of it.

They were going after Magpie. Siesta had gotten a long coat and a balaclava from Hawaiian, and they were going to use that disguise to mug Magpie of the money he'd stolen from Vano. Montmorency had questioned what would happen if Magpie had already spent the money. Siesta had expressed that Magpie had better hope – for his own sake – that he hadn't.

Either way, Vano didn't owe Jack anymore. That was the main thing.

Siesta heard that Magpie liked to artifact hunt down in the old quarry, which was fine by her. It was a place she'd been before, and it wasn't very far away.

But as they hid within the brush near the main path, Montmorency seemed to be having a problem with the newest, last-minute development of Siesta's plan. "No!" She denied quietly. "There is no way I am doing it!"

Siesta groaned. "Come on, Monty. You're the only one that can!"

"How?" She asked in disbelief. "Why can't you do it?"

"Because my tits are too big," Siesta reasoned. "If he sees these things he'll know that we're the ones who mugged him. How many people have big-ass cow tits around here? Two! Louise is too short, and so is Tabitha."

Montmorency sighed, defeated. She deflated, and her shoulder drooped. "I don't want to mug somebody..."

"Why?" Louise asked pointedly. "Because it's a bad thing to do?"

"No!" Montmorency hissed, her vivacity suddenly back. "Because I don't want to get shot!"

"Nobody's gonna shoot you," Siesta reassured, placing a hand down on the blonde's shoulder. "If he makes a move we'll take him out."

With that comment, Louise scrunched her nose. "This might sound a little cold." Everybody turned their sights on her, and she reiterated. "Or rather, very cold, but why are we going through with all of this planning? Why don't we just shoot him and be done with it?"

"Well, I thought about that actually." Siesta shrugged. "I kind of want him to stay alive."

Louise arched an eyebrow. "Why? He's no better than a bandit. He smacked your bottom too, remember?"

"Louise you can't just kill somebody for touching your bottom."

"Oh but what about that other man who grabbed your chest? You killed him rather quickly," Louise pointed out.

"It... well – this is different!"

"It isn't different," Louise protested, crossing her arms.

"But I want him alive, just so he knows that somebody's out to get him, and they're ballsy enough to not give a shit he's with Freedom," Siesta explained. "You know, like, us."

"I'm not actually that, um," Kirche cleared her throat. "Ballsy."

"Okay well I am," Siesta said tiredly. "I'm going to let Gonta know Magpie is here at Yanov Station anyway. Whatever happens after that is up to him."

Louise thought for a second. "Oh, the hunter."

Siesta nodded. "Yeah. Crab got hurt because of Magpie ditching them."

"But Crab died."

"Louise that is not the point."

* * *

They had been waiting in the shelter of a small grove of trees for hours waiting for Magpie to stroll by. Louise thought it was kind of a longshot, and Siesta could agree that maybe it was, but shaking him down in the station lobby wasn't exactly a smart move.

When a light drizzle had begun to fall they had seriously considered giving it up for the day, but as luck would have it that was when Magpie made his grand entrance.

The girls all huddled in the brush, watching the man as he went past. All of the girls aside from Montmorency, that is. The blonde mage had donned the coat and balaclava, and pulled the hood up over her head. Rather than waltz out with her own rifle, Kirche had just given her the Makarov to use.

Montmorency crept up, the lingering silence spell doing well to muffle her footfalls. When she was out on the path, standing behind Magpie, she had no idea how to get his attention. Calling to him was out, that would be stupid. She went the showy route, and pulled back on the Makarov's hammer.

Magpie froze, carefully looked over his shoulder, and when he saw the gun pointed at him by what looked like a rather short bandit, he slowly eased his rifle to the ground. "Hey, listen," he began warningly. "Just take it easy, alright?"

She stepped closer and circled the man, who turned to keep facing her. Montmorency stopped when she was sure his back was to the others. If she couldn't talk, how could she demand his money?

That was why Siesta leapt out of the bushes and clobbered the man upside the head with the butt of her rifle.

Magpie fell like a sack of potatoes, unconscious. The others emerged, and Montmorency pulled away the stuffy balaclava. She tossed it away into the bushes, and got to doing the same with the coat. "Are you sure this is going to work?" Montmorency asked, worried. "What if he knows it was us?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Siesta assured her. She rooted through the man's pockets and pouches, her face gleaming when she came out with a hefty roll of banknotes. She counted them over. "There's like twenty-five thousand here." She only owed Vano half of twenty-two thousand. A bonus for her hard work, she supposed.

* * *

The entire group approached Vano's table when they returned to the station. The man looked a little startled, but when Siesta tossed eleven-thousand rubles down on the table he looked rather relieved.

"It's been taken care of," Siesta told him.

"E-even the bandits? They won't bother me anymore?"

Siesta grinned wide. "I don't think they'll be bothering anyone anymore, Vano."

Vano could guess at what that meant. As Siesta sauntered away with the rest of her all-girl group, he got the sudden feeling that getting on her bad side wouldn't end particularly well.

* * *

Nighttime had taken over the Zone when Siesta was approached by Magpie. She was sitting at a table alone. The others, tired from a day of stalking, had already retired. Siesta didn't feel like going to sleep yet, but she was going to head up soon enough.

That is, until Magpie took a seat right across from her.

Siesta eyed the man darkly, poised to light the day's final cigarette. "And what the hell do you want?"

Magpie didn't look very impressed. "I know it was you."

Siesta feigned ignorance. "You know what was me?"

"You friggin' mugged me!"

"You got mugged?" Siesta laughed and smirked. "Well, sucks to be you I guess? What the hell makes you think I did it?"

"Those looks you've been giving me," Magpie pointed out. "I know you're out to get me."

Siesta decided against lighting the cigarette. She placed it down on the table along with her lighter, and folded her hands on her lap. "I'm not out to get you, Magpie." The man across the table let out a very visible flinch at the use of his old name. "But I know a couple of guys who are. I'd be careful if I were you."

Magpie looked like he could have reached across the table and throttled the girl. He made to stand. "Listen you fucking –"

A very audible click gave him pause. Siesta's hands were still beneath the table. "Did you hear that?" She asked innocently. Her face suddenly turned dark. "That was the sound of me pointing my pistol at your balls. You be careful, because you know I'm crazy enough not to give a shit if you're in Freedom, and you know they like me more than they like you." She shuffled, obviously holstering her sidearm. She collected her cigarette, lit it, and stood. She stared down at him for a moment. "I mean, we both know you had this coming anyway, right?"

"Fuck you."

Siesta snorted, and walked away. "I'll be watching you, Flint. Like a hawk," she called over her shoulder. She stopped at the foot of the stairs and glanced his way. "Like a fucking shit-hawk."

Magpie watched, dumbfounded, as Siesta disappeared. He had two things on his mind, the first being that he should probably make himself scarce before Gonta caught up with him, and the second was what the hell is a shit-hawk?

* * *

 _A/N: RPG's have very little recoil. I once read it as being an odd feeling because of the sudden loss of weight when the rocket leaves the tube. I even saw a video of a very young child firing one without much incident, so theoretically Louise should be able to do it without a problem._

 _So yeah, after this chapter we get some more Alexander adventures, and then Louise & co get into the real business of finding the route to Pripyat, where things [spoilers]._

 _But not before the omake chapter I have planned for next. It'll probably be pretty short, maybe 2 – 3 thousand words (don't quote me on that). It won't be anything extravagant, and it could fit in with the main story, but since it's so not- serious I figure I'll make it the first omake. Will I do more? Maybe. This first one will be titled, 'Chicken Hunting'._

 _I also have a non-canonical alternate ending planned for when the story, you know, ends. I won't tell you what that's about, because it could potentially spoil the real ending._

 _But the story isn't ending yet. Lots of things have to happen first. Louise has to go deer hunting, Kirche needs to smoke a J, Tabitha needs to blow down a wall, Montmorency needs a tan, and Siesta needs to get her hands on a Chevrolet pick- up truck (and yes, this actually happens, but not for a looooong while, and no, it has nothing to do with how the story ends, but it does result in a lot of chaos and it will make sense at the time. Trust me. Sort of.)_


	32. The Road to Pripyat VII

_The Road to Pripyat VII_

 _The Jupiter Factory_

 _October 2nd, 2012_

 _09:43_

September had quickly given way to October, and the Zone's dull weather had somehow managed to get a whole lot duller. Over the course of the days past Louise had found herself doing a remarkable amount of anomaly diving, and the entire group had built up a nice little fund.

Which had promptly been spent at Hawaiian's in about twenty minutes.

It had been a spending spree of sorts, but not quite the kind Louse could have truly enjoyed. They had bought things like plate carriers with accompanying bullet-resistant ceramic plates, webbings to fit more magazines, and more magazines to fit the webbings. Louise herself had replaced the handguard on her M4A1 with one covered on all sides with picatinny rails, on which she had added a vertical foregrip, and a flashlight. The final addition had been a knife, which doubled as a bayonet for her rifle. She doubted she'd ever use it, but she supposed it was a good thing to have.

Louise had also spied a helmet not unlike Siesta's for sale at Hawaiian's. It had obviously been very used – brought in as a trade-in – which was made evident by the scratches marring its surface, the slight indentation near the top, and the words etched into the side that read born to kill. Siesta had also gotten rather childish, and secured a yellow 'happy face' sticker from Hawaiian and slapped it on Louise's helmet when she wasn't looking as a joke, because she rarely smiled.

Louise's venture had been rather pricey, as had the others. Siesta hadn't added anything to her rifle, other than a few spare magazines. She had insisted her weapon was fine the way it was. Montmorency had done the same, as did Tabitha and Kirche. The rest of the money had been allocated to things like medical supplies and canned food for a long trip out into the Zone, because in all likelihood a long trip could very well be on the horizon.

They were south of the quarry, overlooking the Jupiter Factory from the north. Despite the entire month Louise had spent living in the area she had yet to go near the place. The sprawling complex looked rather foreboding from here. Most of the rooftops seemed low at this distance, but one stood much higher than the rest. No doubt there would be no end of mutants crawling out of every dark corner.

And there were the rumors of bandits in the area.

It wasn't a pleasure trip they were on, Grizzly, Torba, and Mitay had finally managed to rope them into finding a route to Pripyat. Siesta had said that they were just going to help them find the entrance, acting as paid help, but the supplies Siesta acquired had gotten Louise thinking that the former maid might still be on the fence.

Nobody could tell what Siesta was thinking half of the time anyway. If Siesta wanted to go the Louise would go along. It wasn't like she had anywhere else to be anyway.

Torba lowered his binoculars, trading them for his L85. "I can't find any bandits. They probably cleared out."

"That's good, isn't it?" Montmorency piped up. Several eyes turned on her. "I-I mean, no bandits is a good thing, right?"

"Well, yes and no," Mitay responded. He carried an old Tokarev rifle, a beast of a thing that looked just as unwieldy as Siesta's old Mosin, and twice as ghastly. "You gotta think about what could have driven them out."

Siesta and Louise shared a brief, but knowing glance. They both remembered the pseudogiant in the ranger station, and wouldn't be forgetting it any time soon.

"We should get moving," Grizzly urged, swinging up his Kalashnikov.

Louise rolled her shoulders, feeling constricted in her bulky vest. She donned her decorated helmet, and unlike Siesta, she was sure to have her chinstrap secured. She unsheathed her bayonet and latched it over the carbine's muzzle, feeling like some kind of strange otherworldly soldier.

At least if somebody shot her in the head with a pistol she might not have her brains turned to mush.

* * *

Grizzly had already explained in depth of how he spoke to Pilot about the route into Pripyat. Pilot, apparently, had a friend who used to work at the Jupiter Factory once upon a time. That was how Grizzly had found out about the rumored Pripyat underpass, a lengthy underground passageway that could take one from the Jupiter Factory, right into the heart of Pripyat.

Pilot had said he hadn't attempted to find the thing himself because wandering alone around the Jupiter Factory wasn't such a brilliant idea. Grizzly wasn't worried about that. He had seven people following behind him.

They had to hook around a massive anomaly field that essentially deleted a fair part of the road, opening it up into great cracks and chasms. It was ripe for artifact hunting, but that wasn't what they were here for. The north entrance to the Jupiter Factory was wide-open and unobstructed, and thus far there didn't seem to be any major mutant activity.

Except for the legions of blind dogs.

The dogs had set upon them almost instantly, and after the first pack had been hastily dealt with the barks and howls could be heard from all across the factory. It wasn't a good situation, that was for sure, but Siesta had reasoned with a weak smile that at least it wasn't bloodsuckers.

Two long multi-floored buildings stretched out on either side of the wide road, and up ahead a raised walkway connected one to the other. Grass and shrubs poked through the cracked asphalt, and plenty of trees seemed to have sprouted up from the sides of the roads. Looking over the area, Louise felt that it looked more like somebody had misplaced some buildings in a light woodland, rather than the vegetation becoming overgrown.

Grizzly pulled out his PDA, flicking to the map screen. It reminded Montmorency she still had one stuffed in her backpack somewhere, which hadn't been turned on since she'd met Siesta in Zaton. The whole group stopped near the walkway. Pilot had told him to take a look around the administrative offices for any documents, but it was really a shot in the dark.

"This is it," Grizzly said, pointing to his left. "That's the admin offices in there, second and third floors."

There was an entrance up ahead. "Let's get in there," Torba said. The door led to a dismally small entryway, where Montmorency, Kirche, and Tabitha were ordered to remain and keep watch. The rest of the group went up to the second floor, where they were dismayed to find the floors strewn with papers of all kinds.

Louise remembered a saying that might apply here as the group let out a collective sigh. "Like a needle in a haystack, I suppose?" She said.

Siesta snorted. "More like a needle in a stack of friggin' needles."

That got a laugh out of Mitay, which quickly trailed into a tired groan. "Let's get to work I guess."

* * *

About twenty minutes later, while sifting through mountains of paperwork and folders, Siesta found her flashlight flickering. Clicking her tongue, she gave it a few light smacks. The light steadied for a moment, and then died completely. "You're shitting me," Siesta muttered, shaking and hitting the flashlight. She had just replaced the batteries a few days ago, and with that thought she started to grow rather irate. "Fuck!" She shouted, throwing the flashlight straight out the nearby window.

Louise and Torba looked on, eyebrows raised.

Downstairs, in the entry way, Kirche started slightly when something suddenly crashed on the asphalt. She adjusted her point of aim. "What was that?" She asked quietly.

Montmorency narrowed her eyes. "I think it's a flashlight..."

"It is," Tabitha nodded.

Kirche sighed, relieved more dogs weren't coming for them. "What in the world are they doing up there?"

Upstairs, Louise spread her arms. "Siesta, was that entirely necessary?"

Siesta tightened her lips. "I got mad," she reasoned.

"Clearly."

Siesta turned and swiftly ducked out of the room. "I'm going for a smoke break!"

Torba didn't seem to like that idea. "Oh, come on. Siesta!"

"Smoke break!" Siesta called from down the hall.

Louise rolled her eyes, and left Torba alone in the room. "I'm going with her."

"What? Why?"

"Because," Louise began as she left the room. "She can't just wander around here alone. And I wouldn't mind one either."

After Louise was gone, Torba stared at the doorway. Oh, but it's okay for me to be left alone!? Despite wanting to scream it, he limited himself to a grumble and went back to sifting through documents.

It didn't take long for Louise to catch up to the former maid, who was already lighting a cigarette as she walked. "Siesta!" Louise hissed, slowing her jog to a walk. "Come on, what's the matter with you?"

"My flashlight broke and I got pissed! So what?"

"You didn't have to throw it out the window," Louise pointed out. The hallway they were in ran along the face of the building. Plenty of light came in through the broken windows, and glass crunched underfoot. "The light-thingy probably just needed to be replaced."

Siesta snorted to herself. Light-thingy. She shook her head and shrugged. "Oh well. I've got another one."

Following as Siesta veered into another long hallway, Louise clutched her rifle and glanced around nervously. "Where exactly are you planning on going for your smoke break? Back to Tristain?"

She laughed. "No," Siesta said. "I'm gonna try and find that really tall part of the building."

"Why?"

"I wanna to go the roof."

Louise scrunched her nose. "Why? What's on the roof?"

"I don't know," Siesta said, rolling her eyes. "Roof stuff? I want to see the view."

"Siesta, God only knows what's lurking around in here!"

Siesta's cigarette hung limply from her mouth as she gestured with her rifle. "That's why we brought these, isn't it?" She shot Louise an amused look. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Sense of adventure?" Louise remarked flatly. "I don't believe I've ever had one."

Keeping a close eye on the things around her, Siesta snorted. "You're still following me, though."

"I can't just let you go off on your own."

"Oh that's rich coming from you," Siesta jabbed, causing Louise to grumble under her breath. "Besides, I spent like four years completely on my own, remember?" That got some more grumbling out of the pink-haired girl. "Four more days and it'll be five years since I came to the Zone."

Louise stopped. "Really? I remember you saying that a while ago, but it's so soon?"

Stopping as well, Siesta shrugged. "Yeah. So? Not like I'm going to celebrate something like that."

She wrinkled her nose. "Well, no. Of course not. When do you turn twenty-two?" Siesta promptly gave a dismissive wave and started off again. "Hey!" Louise called, catching up. "What's your problem now?"

"Why do you care when I turn twenty-two?"

"Because you're my friend?" Louise stated obviously.

"What are you going to do?" Siesta asked, laughing bitterly. "Bake me a cake?"

"I can't even bake, Siesta."

Siesta's laugh turned to amusement. "Of course not, Noble Girl."

Louise glared at the back of her head. "Oh do not start that again. I'll stick you in the arse with my bayonet."

"Take it easy," Siesta shot Louise a smirk. "What's the big deal? That was months ago."

"Whatever."

"If you really want to know, I worked it out a few years ago. My birthday's on the twenty-first of this month."

Navigating the hallways didn't take much longer than Louise had anticipated. Most of the offices around had been vacated decades before, but occasionally one had a few shelves, or an overturned desk. Garbage was strewn about the floors, mould clung to the walls, and the paint peeled away in great strips from the rotting drywall. In one office, Louise noted that the entire floor had fallen down to the level below, and in another hallway she saw sizable sections of ceiling missing. Louise now felt all-too aware of the slight sag beneath her feet.

The tall section of the building hadn't taken long to reach. It acted as a stairwell at the front and back, with more hallways and offices stuffed in between.

Siesta bounded up the twisting stairs with gusto, taking two at a time. "Come on! Race you to the top!"

"Siesta!" Louise called after the stalker, exasperated. "I'm not racing you up the stairs! I'm not a damn child!"

"You look like one!" Siesta called back down.

Louise balked. "What did you just say!?" She shrieked, and took off up the stairs after Siesta. They seemed to go on forever as Louise passed floor after floor, and when she finally got to the rooftop she was a panting and wheezing mess. The long, narrow structure on the roof was barely left standing. Crumbled bricks were all over the floor, and windows were smashed out to gaping holes that allowed the weather to ravage whatever it liked.

She found Siesta standing nearby, at the edge of the roof that was littered with broken ventilation equipment. The former maid had apparently ignited another cigarette, which didn't surprise Louise in the least. Louise unclasped her helmet's strap and pulled it from her head, relishing the cool breeze that flowed through her hair.

Strolling over, Louise had to step over several sections of rusted metal ducting to reach Siesta, who leaned on the solid concrete railing traveling the perimeter of the roof. Louise laid her helmet down.

"That's certainly a view," Louise remarked, staring out. She searched for her own pack of cigarettes.

Siesta pointed. "Check it out," she said. Louise could easily see the buildings of an abandoned city poking over a thick forest several miles away. "That's Pripyat."

Louise paused in the midst of lighting her cigarette. "Really? I honestly pictured it being much further away."

"No, that's it," Siesta said, exhaling a smoky breath. She pointed again, to a building with a tall tower. "See that building there?"

Louise nodded. "Yes."

"That's Reactor 4." Siesta found herself met with a rather confused glance. "It's the center of the Zone."

She stared. "You've seen it before?"

"In pictures."

Louise knew about this world's strange version of paintings that could be created instantly. She'd like to see it done herself, but nobody seemed to be able to show her. "How does somebody even make those around here?"

"Uh," Siesta started. "PDA's have cameras on them I think." Then, she realized. "Oh yeah, Monty still has Grouse's doesn't she?"

"She does," Louise nodded.

"I'm definitely taking embarrassing pictures of you all." That is, if she could figure the damn thing out. Siesta hadn't become a fan of computers.

"Embarrassing pic-a-tures?" Louise said, furrowing her brow. She wasn't completely familiar with that concept, but she got the idea well enough. "You'd better not do anything stupid like that."

Siesta laughed, spinning around with her arms outstretched. "This freaking view though! We should have brought joints."

Louise rolled her eyes. "This isn't the time for that."

"Hey, but it was a good time last week, right?"

Since she hadn't started throwing up everywhere that time, Louise decided that yes, it had been a rather interesting few hours. It was hard to remember the specifics of what had been spoken about, but she had laughed until her throat was raw.

Then, Siesta's radio sputtered to life. It was Torba on the other end. "Siesta, you copy?"

Siesta lifted her radio and threw a gang-sign. Louise snorted. "Yo."

The few seconds of silence made Louise think that Torba was likely scoffing at Siesta's response. "Where the hell did you go?" Torba said, disgruntled. "What, you find the underpass already and forgot to tell us?"

"No, we're just up on the roof."

"Well come down! We found the documents we needed."

"Oh, really?" Siesta said, surprised. "Where were they?"

"Who cares? We gotta head to the laboratory section now."

Siesta swore, throwing half of a good cigarette off the building. She started making for the door with Louise on her tail, who hastily threw on her helmet. "Where the heck is that?"

"You know that walkway we passed under earlier?"

"Uh, I think so."

"You think so?" Torba hissed. "Come on, Siesta!"

"I'm sorry, Torba," Siesta apologized, hitting the stairs. "I'm pretty sure I know where that is."

"You'd know exactly where it is if you didn't go off making out with your friggin' girlfriend!"

Siesta ground to a halt on a landing, as did Louise, who made choking sounds of protest upon hearing Torba's words. Siesta glanced her way, and seeing the red on Louise's face, she smirked. "Listen Torba, what I do with my girlfriend is none of your –"

Louise practically dove at Siesta, wrestling her for the radio. The talk button was depressed. "Don't listen to her Torba!" Louise shrieked. "It's not true! It's all lies!"

Hooting with laughter, Siesta wiped at her eyes. "Your face!"

Louise socked Siesta's arm. "I swear! One of these days!"

"Well that kind of sucks," Torba's voice came from the radio again.

Louise balked, and Siesta raised an eyebrow. "Why?" Siesta asked.

"I dunno, it would have been kind of hot."

Louise's balk got even worse, and Siesta's face twisted. "Torba," Siesta warned. "You'd better stop right there or I'm gonna kick your balls right up into your stomach."

They could easily tell Torba was laughing. So were Mitay and Grizzly by the sounds of it. "Yeah, yeah," Torba said dismissively. "Just get down here, alright?"

"Sir, yes sir," Siesta replied mockingly. She placed the radio back in its pouch. "Men," she grumbled distastefully under her breath.

Louise nodded firmly. "Agreed. Dogs, the lot of them."

They both tried to make the trip from the roof quicker by romping down the staircases at a blistering pace. They retraced their steps through the dank hallways at a jog, and soon enough they could see the walkway coming up through the windows. It was in that walkway when Siesta noticed something extremely alarming. Strolling along the road below was a group of five bandits. Siesta desperately pulled Louise down below the windows.

"Bandits," Siesta hissed.

Louise's eyes widened. "Did they see us?"

"I don't think so." Siesta looked down the walkway. She could see Kirche and Montmorency at the end, standing, both of them confused as to why Siesta and Louise had suddenly dropped. It seemed Montmorency was the first to see the bandits. She ducked, dragging Kirche with her. "Shit. Come on."

They reached the room at the end of the walkway. It was mostly empty, aside from some old smashed computers and overturned metal shelves. "See them?" Louise asked, stopping.

"Of course we saw them!" Montmorency hissed back.

Siesta left Louise there and went deeper into the room where she could hear the men rummaging about. She found Mitay, Torba, and Grizzly tearing apart an office at the back of the room. She set her eyes on Torba first. "You," she said dangerously.

Torba straightened, and spread his arms. "What? I was just kidding Siesta, jeez."

"Oh so you're saying it wouldn't be hot?" Siesta said, seriously confusing the three men. "Are you saying Louise and I are ugly? That's what you're saying, isn't it?"

Torba glanced around as Siesta advanced. "What? No – what the heck are you talking about? I didn't –"

Winking, Siesta suddenly grinned and moved past towards Grizzly. "Just messing with you."

"You're a dick, Siesta."

"We found some documents about the underpass across the way there," Grizzly explained to Siesta while the others kept on rummaging. He handed her the folder. "Apparently the production complex was supposed to be evacuated into underground labs. It was supposed to be discussed somewhere in this area of the factory."

Siesta internally groaned, which manifested itself in a slight tightening of her lips. This seemed to be taking forever, but... "Well at least we're getting somewhere." Then, she remembered one very important detail. "We saw some bandits roaming around."

* * *

 _Albion_

"No – hey!" Alexander protested. "Stop that! Go the other way!" He reverted to Ukrainian in his frustration. "Bitch! What's the matter with you?"

From the horse she and Tiffania shared, Matilda looked back and rolled her eyes. Alexander was riding behind them, and his horse was slowly veering towards the trees. They were only days away from Rosais now, and despite the amount of experience Alexander was getting in horse riding he wasn't getting any better.

"You are honestly hopeless," Matilda commented dryly.

"It's not my fault," Alexander insisted. "The horse is doing it on his own!"

"Just pull on the reins and move your –"

"I am doing that!"

Matilda laughed. "Then I guess he just doesn't like you."

A few minutes later, after quite a lot of grumbling, Alexander finally righted his horse, and even managed to bring it up next to Matilda and Tiffania's. Alexander considered himself a hardy man, who could take a little punishment and keep on going, but right now his rear end and thighs were absolutely killing him. He was sore in ways he didn't know were even possible.

Tiffania was hugging Matilda from behind, and resting her head against the back of the older woman's neck. "You don't look very happy," Tiffania observed, frowning.

 _I'm fucking miserable._ "I've been better," Alexander grunted.

"I haven't ridden on a horse before either," Tiffania pointed out.

"Are you sore?"

Tiffania's frown deepened when she nodded.

"You never did explain how you got around in your little world without riding horses," Matilda said, sounding bored.

Alexander scoffed when Matilda said 'little'. If only she knew. "We invented machines to replace horses."

"Did you?" Matilda remarked. "And what was wrong with horses in the first place?"

"Well, they're animals," Alexander told her. "They're unpredictable. They're not very smart. They're slow."

Matilda gave him a square look. "Horses aren't slow."

"No?" Alexander grinned to himself. "You haven't driven a car."

"You mean like carriages?"

Alexander shrugged. "They're like carriages, just without horses."

"Then how does it move?" Matilda asked.

"It uses an engine."

"And what would that be?"

Alexander sighed. It was still a long ways to Rosais, so he might as well explain to Matilda and Tiffania the concept of an automobile. He had the BMP they'd seen after leaving Matilda's torched cabin to use as an example, at least. Perhaps they would run across some kind of abandoned car or truck before they got to Rosais.

Matilda had told him that she and Tiffania were only accompanying him to Rosais to see him off, so that would probably be the last he'd see of them. It was a shame, because Matilda was right up his alley.

* * *

It had taken a while, but Mitay was the one to discover what they needed. He'd found the binder beneath a pile of papers, and the stained pages told them that the underpass had been apparently discussed in this part of the factory, and then it would be taken care of by the delivery department. It seemed to everybody that these sets of documents were leading them on some sort of scavenger hunt.

The delivery department was back across the walkway on the other side of the office complex, according to Grizzly. They backtracked and took a route through the building, wary all the way. They filed through the corridors in a straight line, their weapons ready and shouldered. They hoped not to run into anybody, but when moving through the main stairwells that separated the two halves of the complex, they ran into some trouble.

Apparently the bandits were looking for something specific, because two of them were keeping watch while the others rummaged about through an office. They spotted Grizzly when he had pre-emptively peeked around a corner.

The bandits yelled something, but it was promptly drowned out when Grizzly swung up his Kalashnikov. The gunshots in the tight hallways were deafening thunderous crashes. Torba's were just as bad, but Mitay's had to be the worst. Louise had grown used to the sound of gunfire – it didn't affect her much anymore – but the ridiculous blast the Tokarev threw out from the sides of its muzzle brake had her flinching.

Fire was returned, tearing holes through the drywall and bathing the group in a layer of dust. Louise had thrown herself flat to the floor.

"Siesta!" Grizzly shouted. "Try and get around them!"

Louise was up on her feet without even having to be picked. Siesta gave her a nod, and then motioned to somebody else. Louise didn't look to see who it was until they were rounding the corner into a hallway they'd already passed. Louise knew that Siesta normally picked herself and Kirche if she had to choose, but this time it was Tabitha with them. It made sense in a way. Tabitha's little sub machine gun would be a boon in a close quarters encounter.

They turned into another hallway, parallel to the one Grizzly and the others were in, and it seemed the bandits had come up with a similar plan because there were three of them already halfway down the corridor.

Siesta swore and let off two hasty rounds. Her intended kill had dodged death and ducked through a doorway on the left. Siesta had spent enough time rummaging through the offices to know that most of them were connected. He would get around. The other two bandits took their own shots leaning out of doorways. Siesta found herself separated from Tabitha and Louise on the other side of the hallway.

"Hey!" Siesta called over the gunfire, being sure it was in Tristanian. "Keep them busy!"

"Where are you going!?" Louise called back.

Siesta didn't respond. She veered into the danger zone for a hair of moment before she practically dove for the first door on her left. She kept her rifle to her shoulder as she blazed through the first office, and then into the second. When she entered into the next office she took a more cautious approach, and slowed. It seemed it was for naught, because the bandit had been waiting in ambush.

He brought the butt end of his pump-action down on Siesta's rifle, stripping it from her hands. It took her completely by surprise, but when he came at her with the shotgun she managed to catch it in time. The barrel had swung so close to her face, and at this point Siesta noticed that the gunfire right outside in the hallway had come to a quick halt.

And then, the pump-action was discharged right next to the side of her head. The shot missed, thankfully, but her left ear was painfully deafened which had her screaming out in agony. The bandit pushed her back against the wall, and she found herself quite overpowered as the magazine tube was pressed against her throat, cutting off her air and threatening to crush her windpipe. At the edge of what was left of her hearing, Siesta heard somebody call her name.

Louise burst into the room, took quick stock of the situation, and with a cry, promptly sunk her bayonet into the bandit's lower back. The bandit's grip loosened, and Siesta found her breath returning. Louise immediately jabbed the man again, before he even had the chance to scream. The shotgun clattered to the floor as the bandit fell, crying out. Louise sunk her blade into flesh once again, into the bandit's stomach.

Siesta, properly angry, grabbed up the shotgun, and racked a new shell into the chamber. She leveled it point-blank into the bandit's face.

"No!" The bandit pleaded. "Wait –"

Siesta fired. The buckshot opened his head, turning it into an unrecognizable mess. Short of breath, she tossed the twelve-gauge to the floor, and retrieved her rifle. All the gunfire had come to a stop.

Louise stared. "You're alright?"

Siesta rubbed at her throat. "I'm fine." She motioned to Louise's bloody bayonet. "Thanks, for that."

"I believe I still owe you more than one."

Moving past, Siesta gave Louise a pat on the shoulder. "Oh there's plenty of time to pay me back. Where's Tabitha?"

Her question was answered when she went back into the hallway. Tabitha remained, keeping watch. The two bandits in the hallway lay dead. Thick clouds of drywall dust hung in the air and settled, highlighting the blood leaking from the dead. Siesta noticed that Tabitha had gotten a generous amount of the chalky substance in her hair.

"Siesta!" Torba's voice came from up the hall. "Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah, we're clear!" Siesta called back. The others came into view, and Siesta led Louise and Tabitha to meet them.

"Nice hair," Kirche commented to Tabitha as the two groups met. She ruffled the shorter girl's hair, sending dust everywhere.

"You three alright?" Grizzly asked.

Siesta nodded. "Yeah, we're fine." She grinned. "Just another day in paradise."

* * *

 _A/N: Disregard some of my last A/N. Skipping the extras/omakes for now in favor of getting shit done._

 _I did plenty of poking around in-game at the Jupiter Factory for this chapter. Look it up online, the real Jupiter Factory and the one in the game are practically laid out the same. The real one looks a hell of a lot creepier, though, and you actually can see reactor 4 from the roof (at least from the picture I saw)._

 _Some Theanna the White fun facts. I own several of the weapons featured in this story, among them are a Mosin-Nagant 91/30, and an SKS. I've also fired a friend's Tokarev rifle. The thing is freaking long, heavy as hell, and the muzzle blast from the sides of the brake is pretty intense. It doesn't shoot fire everywhere or anything (unless it's dark out), but if you happen to be standing beside the shooter, with or without hearing protection, it's pretty uncomfortable._


	33. The Road to Pripyat VIII

_A/N: A few notes before we start, because I think it might come up. I don't think Rosais is a city, per say. Canon-wise I'm pretty sure it's just a military airfield._

 _Oh well, it's not like we've diverged from canon before, right? I don't like making up place names much, so I figure I'll just use it for this story. It isn't like we'll be spending much time there from Alexander's point of view._

* * *

 _The Road to Pripyat VIII_

 _Albion_

 _18:42_

"No," Alexander said firmly, stomping through the crowded street. "I know you're just trying to mess with me now."

"We're not!" Matilda insisted. She almost had to jog to keep up with his pace. Tiffania was practically being dragged along. "Why would I make that up?"

Alexander nearly smacked into a young woman as he rounded on the career thief. Even in the evening, Rosais was bustling with activity. Alexander seemed to have taken the worst route when he decided to run off and prove to himself Matilda was a liar – he had ended up right in the middle of the market.

Unlike the small village that Matilda and Tiffania had lived not far from, Rosais was a proper city. The buildings seemed to tower in the narrow, garbage strewn streets, but Alexander knew it had nothing on Kiev. Alexander wanted to rub that city in Matilda's face. It just might humble her.

Alexander wanted to see as much as possible on his interdimensional trip. That is, if this was that kind of impossible situation. Maybe this was just another planet? He somehow doubted that. It would be a big stretch, considering these people had come up with languages exactly the same as ones on Earth, coupled with the some of the same flora and fauna as well.

Except this place had things like dragons on top of it all. That was just awesome.

Alexander hadn't had much contact with the aristocracy that apparently ruled over all of the non-magic users, aside from Guiche de Gramont's small travelling group, but from what he had heard most of them could be a pain to deal with. Alexander wasn't worried. If somebody was going to go out of their way to give him trouble they were going to find out that a bullet in the stomach could be a pain to deal with too.

When Alexander finally began to clear the buildings, towards what he was sure was going to be some kind of harbor, he stopped dead. There was a harbor alright, but it wasn't like one he had ever seen before. Far out in a wide open field a massive lattice spire stretched hundreds of feet into the air. Alexander's best guess was that it served as a lighthouse or beacon. Stretching out from the tower's base were four long docks, all elevated well off the ground by more wooden lattice. The spaces between the docks were taken up by wide ramps at shallow angles. The only way up, it seemed.

That is, unless you were stepping off one of the old-fashioned galleons that were floating in mid-air.

Alexander reverted to his native tongue in astonishment. "Shit..." He breathed. Airplanes and helicopters were one thing, but wooden boats floating through the sky with sails and wings was complete insanity. The wings themselves weren't like a plane's wings. Canvas membranes were stretched between the wooden beams, giving the structures an almost bat-like appearance. Alexander doubted very much that they created any lift. They were probably just stabilizers to keep the ship level.

That still didn't answer the question of why the ships could just hover.

Far ahead, past the tower, it seemed as if the world just sort of... ended. Alexander took off in a jog, leaving an annoyed Matilda and a sweating Tiffania behind. There was no way. It had to be a cliff or something.

But it wasn't. Alexander stopped at the edge of the world and gazed down at open sky. The clouds swirling around blocked most of his view, but through the gaps Alexander could see the ocean. It was thousands of feet below.

Alexander stumbled backward, suddenly experiencing some very intense vertigo.

"Are you satisfied?" Matilda grumbled, coming up from behind. Tiffania was absolutely out of breath. "Have you really never heard of a free-floating island?"

Alexander whirled around, balking. "No!" He cried. "That... it's crazy!"

Matilda crossed her arms. "It isn't."

"It is!"

"It isn't!"

Alexander pointed towards the docks. "And we don't have flying ships like that either!"

Matilda suddenly looked very unimpressed. "Your people can't even fly?"

"Well... we can, but..." Alexander was at a loss for words. "Not like that! That's insane! Why didn't you tell me about this sooner?"

"I assumed you would have already known!" Matilda said defensively.

Alexander deflated like a punctured balloon. This was certainly one of those times when he yearned for a stiff drink.

* * *

 _The Jupiter Factory_

 _October 2nd, 2012_

 _12:17_

Kirche pressed the binoculars against her face. The small pack of dogs sniffed about idly, although a pair seemed to have just gotten into a tussle. They snapped viciously at each other, crisp barks echoing throughout the factory. Kirche cast a glance towards Montmorency, who pressed the HK33's stock deep into her shoulder. While everybody else had taken part in sifting through the documents strewn about the delivery department, Kirche and Montmorency were stuck pulling watch.

It was boring work, that was for sure, but Kirche was thankful. Those manifests and schedules had been thrown across the floor in the most absurd mess she had ever laid witness to. They had been at it for over an hour now. Everybody was beginning to feel strung out and annoyed from the monotony, but again, Kirche knew things could be worse. She'd rather be doing this than storming the container warehouses again. Some days she could still feel a dull ache pulsing through her shin.

"Are you going to do it?" Kirche asked.

Montmorency shifted, biting her lip. "I don't want to... They're not bothering us."

"They will be once we go back outside."

Resigned, Montmorency gazed down the one-hundred meter notch in the H&K's drum sight and minutely adjusted the best she could. A dry crack split the air, and the dogs were instantly sent scattering. Only one remained. Montmorency lowered the rifle. "Happy now?" She asked bitterly.

"Not really," was Kirche's reply.

Kirche's radio buzzed to life. It was Louise's voice that came through. "What are you two doing out there?"

She depressed the talk button. "Shooting dogs," Kirche replied.

Torba's voice was the one to come next. "You are horrible people."

Kirche could feel the scathing glare coming from Montmorency. The blonde was never one to take a jab in stride. "Shut up, Torba," Kirche said.

"I shouldn't have even –" Montmorency didn't get the chance to finish. A millisecond of hissing was all the warning she had before the drywall next to her head exploded in a shower of chalky dust. She fell back with a cry, hacking and spitting. Her face and hair were both coated in a grimy white film.

"Monmon!" Kirche cried, diving for her friend.

Montmorency coughed. "What... the hell was that?"

"You almost got shot in the face!"

There was a rumbling stampede of footsteps in the hallway. The sound of the bullet carving through the wall had been loud enough, but Kirche suspected Montmorency's initial cry was what had attracted the most attention. Kirche couldn't remember hearing a gunshot at any time. That worried her.

"Kirche!" Siesta called. It seemed she wouldn't dare stick her head in the open. "What's going on in there?"

"Somebody's shooting!" Kirche hollered back. "Don't come in here!"

Louise was next to call. "We thought we heard Monty scream!"

"You did!" Montmorency spat. "I've almost had my head taken off!"

There was a dull thud, and then Siesta poked into the room. Not on her feet, but flat on her belly. Her face was serious. "But you're both alright?"

Kirche nodded. "We're fine."

Montmorency wiped at her face. "Speak for yourself," she muttered.

"Get down on the floor and crawl out, come on," Siesta told them urgently. "Any idea where it came from?"

"Yeah." Kirche got down on her stomach and started crawling. She pointed towards the window. "That way."

"This isn't the time to be cute, Kirche."

Kirche smirked, crawling into the hallway. "But I'm always cute."

Once Montmorency emerged into the hallway, Torba immediately snorted. "Monty, you put on way too much powder."

"Sh-shut up, Torba!"

* * *

As luck would have it, skirting along the outside of the eastern wall was no issue. The window Kirche and Montmorency had been gazing through had given them a view to the south down a long stretch of road that ran between more administrative centers and the factory's main complex itself. Presumably, the shooter was somewhere in that direction.

It was quite the crapshoot, Siesta thought. Behind her was an odd assortment – Mitay, Torba, and Tabitha. Montmorency was still rather shocked from so suddenly almost being shot through her face, so Kirche had volunteered to stay behind and comfort the girl, although Kirche wouldn't dare actually say that for fear of a high-pitched reprisal a hundred times worse than even Louise could dish out.

Siesta had then written up her plan in her mind. She would take Tabitha, Torba, and Mitay. Grizzly and Louise would remain behind with Kirche in case anything happened. Siesta felt comfortable in that. She knew Grizzly was capable, and she had grown to trust in Louise's judgement. She also had other plans for Louise, but it wasn't time for that yet.

Narrowing down the type of shooter hadn't taken Siesta long. Nobody had heard a gunshot, and Kirche insisted that there had been no bullwhip-crack of a supersonic projectile. Somebody was shooting a suppressed rifle with subsonic ammunition. That narrowed it down to a probable few weapons in her mind, considering what was most common in the Zone.

The building under suspect had been about two-hundred meters away – an estimate, of course. It was an easy distance for any would-be sharpshooter. There was another gate that allowed them entrance nearby, leading to a small yard filled with construction equipment. Ducking, Siesta led the others to the cover of a large yellow excavator. Whether the sniper had been acting alone or not was anyone's guess. Either way, Siesta wasn't very enthusiastic. If the sniper was alone, then they could be one crazy, skilled individual, and Siesta was leading her friends into a sea of booby traps. If the sniper had company, then they had to contend with more than one gun.

Siesta poked her head into the open, but only just. By her estimation, the building had about sixty-seven million windows the sharpshooter could be using.

"What are you thinking?" Mitay asked quietly.

Her eyes were kept on the windows. There were several broken panes on the upper floors she suspected. Siesta fingered for her radio. "Louise," she said. "Do it."

Back in the room where Montmorency had nearly lost her head, Louise unsheathed the hunting knife from her boot and used the blade to gently ease her helmet up over the window sill. There, she let it remain, her body tensed. She expected a bullet to rip by at any moment.

Strangely, though, it never did.

Behind the excavator, Siesta huffed, annoyed. "Louise," she said into the radio again. "Did you copy? Are you doing it?"

 _"Yes!" Louise hissed back. "It's not my fault nothing's happening!"_

Tabitha watched, almost in horror, as the bullet carved a path near the top of the excavator's body, only inches from Siesta's head. Siesta immediately recoiled into cover, spitting obscenities fit for no ears. The shot had come from a completely different direction than expected.

Leaping up, Mitay and Torba let out a barrage of cover fire. Torba's bullpup automatic slung out spent casings in spiraling fury, while Mitay's gargantuan battle rifle let off deep, thunderous claps. Tabitha was up too, but not in time. The hooded figure was sprinting full-speed, and quickly disappeared through a small entryway – right into the largest building in the compound.

Siesta stumbled to her feet, shouldering her rifle. "Where the fuck did he go!?" She screamed.

"In the big building, I think!" Mitay replied, wrenching the magazine from his Tokarev rifle. "Shit!"

"Siesta!" Louise screeched over the radio. "What's going on!?"

Siesta was off and running with the others hastily on her tail. "We're chasing the bastard!" She replied. "Get everybody else down here!"

 _"What!? Siesta!"_

Without responding, Siesta strained her muscles and pushed herself into a dead sprint. There was no way to know why this person had fired on them. It seemed to have been without provocation. Perhaps they were dealing with a bandit, who had witnessed the defeat of his comrades an hour earlier, and now he was out for blood. That was fine by Siesta. If he wanted a fight, she'd gladly give him the shortest one of his life.

Skidding, Siesta ground to a halt next to the only open doorway. Inside, she could hear dogs barking, followed by a series of sharp clacks. Was that the rifle discharging? Or was it just the sound of the bullets smacking into whatever was in their way?

Tabitha was next to come to a sliding stop. "The others?"

"Coming." When the two men came up on them, Siesta nodded towards Mitay. With his gangly rifle he would be the most useless in tight quarters. "Wait here for everybody else, alright?"

"What? No way. I'm not going to just –"

Siesta didn't wait to hear him out. She ducked into the building, rifle shouldered. The room was dank, and nearly pitch dark. Her flashlight was quickly put to use. The noises were coming from deeper within the building. Siesta raced beneath overhead catwalks and romped over metal gratings, making for the doorway in the back corner of the room. There was light in the next room, and there, Siesta made an interesting discovery.

A military helicopter had crashed landed through the factory's roof, and was sitting in the middle of a large room atop a pile of twisted rubble. The cockpit canopy was a shattered mess, and the entire body had been scorched black.

That was pushed back for later pondering. At the foot of the helicopter was a limp body, currently under siege by a savage pack of pseudodogs.

 _How anti-climactic..._

Siesta shouldered her rifle and let loose, ears buzzing. Tabitha and Torba weren't far behind. They both joined in, haphazardly spitting lead in full-automatic. The dogs that simply weren't dropped on the spot scurried off in a mad fury, retreating into the dark recesses of the factory.

A silence fell. Siesta motioned for the others to move up with a flick of her head. Their fallen foe's face and neck had been mercilessly shredded into a stomach-churning mess. It wasn't quite obvious if he had been a bandit or not. Siesta didn't particularly care. She found the weapon that had almost spilled the contents of her head.

She held the rifle out for Tabitha. "Here."

Tabitha cocked her head. "Why?"

"Why not?" Siesta shrugged. "It's totally you."

Letting her Sudaev hang from its sling, Tabitha curiously accepted the Vintorez.

* * *

Siesta romped down the metal stairs, wary of their creaking with each step. While she had been busy hunting down some amateur sniper Grizzly had managed to find exactly what they were looking for in the delivery department. Shipments of something called 'Item 62' had been scheduled to arrive in the repair workshop, which Siesta had come to discover was the very first room she had stormed through.

Item 62 hadn't been forgotten. Siesta remembered that mess in the Zaton underground well enough. What exactly Item 62 was supposed to be was still a little above her head, though.

But the repair workshop hadn't held much of anything. There were no documents – just mountains of trash. The helicopter that had crashed through the roof in the next room was nothing new to the long-time Yanov residents. Grizzly had assured all of them that most stalkers in the area knew that a helicopter had slammed into the Jupiter Factory's roof during the summer.

They decided to probe deeper into the factory, and that had revealed the room they were in now – it was bloody massive.

Nobody had a light powerful enough to even illuminate halfway across the room, but it had only taken a few minutes of exploring to get a decent hold on their surroundings. A long control room hugged the metal ceiling where it came forth from the wall, supported at its furthest point by a thick concrete pillar. Faded yellow safety railing bordered the pit in the middle of the room, a wide ramp led down from the far end of the room at a gentle angle, obviously meant for vehicles, and at the bottom it flattened out in an area filled with wooden crates and metal shipping containers.

But what interested everybody the most were the two massive metal doors on the floor. Grizzly and his two friends were convinced that this had to be it; the cargo elevator leading to the Pripyat underpass. Siesta wasn't so easily convinced of that, but nevertheless the men had set out in finding a way to open the doors.

At the bottom of the stairs Siesta found Grizzly and Torba picking with the generator. It was on a little raised platform of its own, and if the amount of surface rust was any indication the diesel wouldn't be turning over anytime soon. Siesta skipped steps up to the generator platform. "What have we got?" She asked.

Grizzly grunted. The valve cover was on the floor by his feet. "It's pretty gunked up," he told her. "It probably hasn't been started in friggin' years, so it'll take a bit of work to get it going."

Siesta didn't like the sound of that. "Can you do it?"

"I don't know." Grizzly clicked his tongue. "I'm not a mechanic. It took me like, thirty minutes to get this freakin' valve cover off."

"Only because I showed you how," Torba pointed out.

"Well it took you that long to remember it anyway," Grizzly retorted defensively.

Siesta groaned, and spared a look over her shoulder. Kirche, Montmorency, and Tabitha were beneath the control room with Mitay, standing near a workbench. They were talking over something or other. It must have been nice, because Kirche let out a hearty laugh, and even Montmorency allowed herself a smile and a small giggle. Louise, however, didn't seem to be in on the fun. She stood a small distance away, leaning her bottom against the safety railing. Her burning cigarette cast an orange glow across her eyes.

Louise had her rifle hanging on its single-point sling, right hand on the grip, and the left nursing her cigarette. "'Sup?" Siesta casually greeted.

"Tired," Louise muttered in response. "I wouldn't mind a nap."

"It's only one-forty," Siesta told her.

Louise sighed through her nose. "That's it? It feels like we've been here all day."

"We're probably going to clear out soon," Siesta said. "The generator's busted."

"No opening the door?"

Siesta shrugged, blowing out a breath of air. "Probably not."

Louise gave her a look. "You sound disappointed," she observed.

"I'm not."

"No?"

Siesta bit her lip. "Maybe a little."

"Siesta," Louise began, turning to face the older girl with arms crossed over her rifle. Her cigarette bounced in the corner of her mouth as she spoke. "I can think of about a million and a half places I'd rather go than through those doors."

Siesta fully realized she was being contradictory to something she'd said a month before. "Well... maybe it could be a place worth checking out?"

"Or it could be the last place we ever check out."

Siesta frowned. "You really don't want to go, do you?"

"I go where you go." Louise shrugged. "I think I owe you that much. Can't be any worse than where we are now anyway."

Siesta was a little taken aback. "...You don't actually owe me anything."

"If we hadn't met that day in the marshes I'm fairly certain I wouldn't be alive right now," Louise pointed out, looking away. She pulled her cigarette from her lips. "I haven't really thanked you for that," she finished quietly. "So thank you."

Siesta snorted. She wanted to ruffle Louise's hair, but settled for giving her a light smack on the helmet. "Don't worry about that, you little weirdo."

Suddenly, Louise swung out and socked Siesta on the arm. "Don't call me a weirdo when I'm trying to be genuine!"

Kirche watched, grinning as Siesta laughed uproariously. Some might have said at one time that Louise de la Valliére got along with absolutely nobody, but that had definitely changed now. Louise and Siesta certainly had an odd way of getting along, but Kirche had the feeling that they were well on their way to becoming an inseparable pair.

"What is it?" Montmorency asked, noticing Kirche's stare.

Kirche snorted. "Did you ever think you'd see Louise getting along with somebody?"

"No," Montmorency immediately answered. "Least of all us."

Kirche had long since known the formula for the odd friendship between Louise and Siesta. Louise, very rarely, would say something meaningful and genuine while shyly glancing away with rosy cheeks, and then Siesta would promptly follow it up with something stupid. While Siesta was having a good laugh at her own words, Louise would admonish her in a loud voice and oftentimes would either hit Siesta on the arm, or stomp away while muttering obscenities under her breath. Siesta would keep on laughing anyway.

Louise didn't let out loud curses as often as Siesta, but Kirche routinely heard them muttered when something wasn't going her way. They weren't incredibly vulgar words, but Kirche herself found it rather amusing. Kirche had always found herself inadvertently laughing when people got annoyed or angry. It was a bad habit, and it had certainly gotten her in a few sticky situations home in Germania.

As Siesta wandered back over towards the two men working at the generator in vain, Kirche saw that Louise was stalking her way. She listened closely, and barely heard Louise muttering in that tiny voice over the sound of Montmorency and Torba talking.

"Stupid... stupid... God damn... frigging stupid..."

Kirche started snickering to herself, and Louise noticed. The pink-haired stalker turned her glare on the Germanian.

"What are you laughing about?" Louise asked snappily.

"Something Tabitha said," Kirche answered smoothly.

Louise raised her brow, and spared a glance towards Tabitha. Her annoyance seemed to just fade away. Kirche theorized it was because she hadn't told Louise she was actually laughing at her. "Since when does Tabitha talk?" Louise asked jokingly.

Tabitha looked, her gaze flat.

"Have another fight with your girlfriend?" Torba asked Louise teasingly.

"G-girlfriend!?" Louise sputtered, her eyes like dinner plates. She pointed back towards where Siesta was. "That thing is not my girlfriend!"

The laughter rolled from Torba in a tidal wave, and with that, Kirche let out a loud guffaw.

Then, Siesta's voice came back. "Come on, Louise! We might as well just come out now! Everybody knows!" Grizzly and Mitay, despite their obvious frustration, could be heard laughing along with Siesta.

"Shut up, Siesta!" Louise screamed. "God!"

Before Louise could steam off somewhere to be alone and suck back another handful of cigarettes, Siesta and the two men made their way over. The amusement was quickly fading from Grizzly's face. "We can't get that thing going on our own," he announced tiredly.

"Kind of wish we knew a mechanic right now," Mitay added.

"I knew one, once," Siesta said. She sighed. "Pretty sure he's still on the other side of the barrier, though."

"We could always go see Nitro," Torba suggested. "I hear he knows a thing or two about this stuff."

Grizzly scratched at his beard. "He does, huh?"

Suddenly, Louise chose that time to speak up. Her eyes darted between everybody. "Who or what is a Nitro?

Torba stared. "You know, the gunsmith."

"Oh," Louise said. "I've never actually gone to see him."

Torba scoffed, and pointed to Louise's carbine. "You carry one of those and you haven't gone to see him?"

Louise looked down at her carbine and then spread out her free arm. "What? It works just fine!"

"They're not really reliable."

Siesta rolled her eyes. "You want to talk about unreliable, Torba? L85's suck. If you've got one that works, you've got the only one that works."

"I've never had a problem with mine," Torba proclaimed, almost proudly.

"I can't even count how many of those I've seen break," Siesta went on.

Torba flapped his hand. "Forget you guys."

"We're not –" Louise began, but was promptly cut off when Siesta flicked her on the cheek. Louise hissed and batted the hand away. "What was that for?" She asked grumpily.

Siesta ignored her. "Enough about whose gun is the worst."

Grizzly nodded. He wasn't so enthusiastic about what he was going to say next. "I guess the only thing we can do is walk back to Yanov."

With that, the group let out a collective groan. It seemed that nobody wanted to walk back to the train station, and then make the return trip back to the factory.

"Wait a second," Siesta said slyly. "We don't all have to go back. A few of us can stay here and... y'know, keep the area secure."

Grizzly shrugged at the idea. "Sounds good enough to me. You and two others?"

"Yeah, sure," Siesta nodded.

Kirche instantly raised her hand. "I'm it."

Tabitha did as well. "It."

Montmorency balked at her friends. "Are you serious?"

Kirche smirked, while Siesta playfully stuck out her tongue. "You just weren't quick enough on the draw, Monmon," Kirche told her.

Louise put a hand on Montmorency's shoulder, rolling her eyes at the others. "Come on. Those three are just being lazy."

* * *

Siesta had almost begun regretting staying behind. Not because the innards of the Jupiter Factory was a dark and scary place, but because she was now bored beyond belief. The factory creaked and groaned ominously every so often with the wind that had suddenly picked up outside, but the sounds of mutants were absent. There were no strange shrieks or cries, and no skittering of claws.

Taking another drag from her cigarette, Siesta turned away from the safety railing and sauntered back towards the control room. Kirche and Tabitha were underneath, sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall and talking amongst themselves in low voices. Siesta realized she had yet to experience a complete conversation with Tabitha, but Kirche seemed to have them with the quiet Gallian all the time.

She dropped down unceremoniously next to Tabitha. "How ya doin', Tab?"

Tabitha glanced. She had the Vintorez laid out across her lap. "I'm fine," she replied quietly.

"Yeah?" Siesta blew out another smoky breath. The area underneath the control room was dimly lit by Kirche's flashlight standing up on end. "You're not bored as shit like I am?"

"I am."

Siesta looked. "You're what?"

"Bored."

"Bored as what?"

Kirche snorted. "Are you trying to make Tabitha swear?"

Siesta laughed. "That's not even a bad word!"

"No?" Kirche said, almost challengingly. "If I said that in my mother's face I don't want to know what she would do to me."

"What could she do?" Siesta retorted. "Send you to your room? Make you go to bed without supper?"

Kirche rolled her eyes. "I think slapping me across the face would be the minimum."

Siesta flapped her hand dismissively. "So what? You've been shot before."

"Well," Kirche chuckled. "When you put it that way."

The former maid looked thoughtful all of a sudden. "You know, I don't think I've ever been slapped."

"No?" Kirche said.

Siesta shook her head. "No. I've been punched in the face plenty of times, but I haven't been slapped." She paused, pursing her lips, before she turned to Tabitha with a glint in her eye. "I need a favor."

Tabitha stared. "...A favor?"

"Slap me across the face."

Mouth slightly open, Tabitha seemed to have been at a loss. "Slap you?"

Siesta nodded vigorously. "Yes." She suddenly wrapped her arm around the small-framed girl's shoulders and pulled herself in to an uncomfortably close distance. The rim of Siesta's helmet touched Tabitha's head. "Please, Tabitha," Siesta said in the huskiest voice she could manage. "Do it."

Tabitha promptly pushed Siesta away. "Stop that."

Nearby, Kirche laughed. "You are being weird."

Sighing dramatically, Siesta flopped back onto the concrete floor. "Because I'm frigging bored! You know I get weird when I'm bored." There was a stretch of silence that was only a few minutes, but somehow it felt much longer. Siesta felt like lighting up another cigarette, but decided against it when she remembered she'd gone through half a pack already today. Idly, Siesta realized she had begun smoking much more since meeting Louise. She lifted her head. "Hey," she began. "Do you remember that time when –"

Suddenly, Siesta was cut off by the distinct sound of crackling electricity. Far off, in the darkness at the other end of the room, she barely caught the green flash. She was in a crouch with her H&K at her shoulder almost instantly. Kirche and Tabitha didn't waste much time either. The redheaded Germanian scooped up her Kalashnikov in one swift motion, while the Gallian quickly traded the suppressed rifle for her PPS.

"What was that?" Kirche hissed.

"Did you see that flash?" Siesta asked apprehensively.

"Yes!"

"I think it was one of those portals."

Tabitha glanced. "Portals?"

Siesta nodded. "You know, the ones taking people between the Zone and Tristain."

Kirche scrunched her nose. "I've never actually seen one of those second-hand so I wouldn't know what they look like."

Most people hadn't, Siesta suspected. She had only witnessed one because of Kirche's appearance in Zaton. She mulled over what could have been dumped out across the room, worried. Was it just another hapless Halkeginian? Or was it something a little more unpleasant?

Either way, Siesta knew whoever was over there knew where they were. They'd have to be blind not to see their flashlights.

"Maybe we should –" Kirche didn't get the chance to finish. A light hiss rippled through the air, followed by a dull thwack. Kirche looked over, just in time to see Siesta looking down in bewilderment at the arrow shaft sticking out of her vest.

It took a solid second for Siesta to click into action, and when finally did she was none too pleased. "What the fuck!?" She roared, tearing the arrow out of her plate carrier. "Did you just shoot me with a fucking arrow!?"

Kirche and Tabitha both flinched when Siesta let off a handful of rounds into the darkness. Across the room, one of the rounds hit metal and sent out a shower of sparks. Siesta had apparently missed by a wide margin, because another arrow came hissing and clacked against the concrete near Kirche's feet.

Oddly, Tabitha was the one to yell. She grabbed Kirche by her shoulder and pulled. "Move!"

"Control room!" Siesta added. "It's the only cover!"

The three of them took off, just as another arrow landed somewhere nearby. Siesta veered for the stairs, and faltered completely when she was nearly blinded by another blistering green flash. She tried to stop, ended up skidding on the dank and dirty floor, and landed right on her bottom.

The green portal was gone just as fast as it had come, and what it left behind was highlighted by Siesta's flashlight. It was a small, human-like creature wearing nothing more than rags. Its skin that was dark and leathery, with a head that was almost dog-like in shape.

It looked just as surprised as Siesta, and almost simultaneously they screamed in each other's faces out of fright. As the creature leapt back, Tabitha let loose with a burst from her Sudaev. "Goblins!" She called.

More green flashes came from all around the room, along with another arrow that narrowly missed Kirche's nose. "Get under the stairs!" Siesta cried.

It wasn't as structurally sound as the control room, but it would have to do. Siesta didn't know much about Goblins, she had never seen any in person before, and it had been so long since her time in Halkeginia. The only thing she did remember was that, like some of the Zone's mutants, they were almost always inherently hostile to anything that wasn't one of them.

Another arrow clacked against the stairs. From around the room, they could hear low, garbled chattering and claws clicking against concrete. "Can Goblins even make bows?" Siesta asked quietly.

"Crudely," Tabitha said. "Most likely stolen."

"Bringing a bow to a gunfight..." Siesta breathed, shaking her head. "It almost worked too."

"It didn't go through?" Kirche asked, looking towards Siesta's vest.

Siesta shook her head. Her plate was rated to defeat some nasty rifle threats, but it disturbed her how far the arrow had managed to burrow in. "No, but it was friggin' in there."

Tabitha promptly shushed the two girls, listening intently. "They're coming," she said.

"Yeah but where –" Siesta didn't finish. A goblin bounded into her cone of light, wielding nothing more than a pointed stick. She immediately fired. "Shit!"

Kirche joined Siesta as more appeared, screeching and howling wildly. Tabitha brought up her beater sub machine gun and barely heard the attack coming over the two rifles. She whirled, just in time to see a goblin drop from the stairs. As soon as it hit the floor, Tabitha saw the flash of a blade.

Being the pragmatist she was Tabitha never did go for the flashy route. She simply fired a short burst point-blank into the goblin's chest.

Siesta yanked the G3A3's charging handle rearward. "Cover me!"

Kirche balked. She had just knocked away her Kalashnikov's empty magazine with a fresh one. "I'm out too!"

Siesta simply let her rifle clatter to the floor when she went for her sidearm. She had long-since been confident enough to carry her pistol with a round chambered, so the Fort-12 came up barking. Tabitha did her best to cover Kirche's reload, but the Sudaev's magazine seemed to run dry in a split-second. Thankfully, Kirche was no slouch when it came to getting her rifle up again – she reached under the Kalashnikov and gave the charging handle a swift rack.

Slide locked rearward, Siesta brought her pistol back close and paused. The room was suddenly shrouded in an oppressive silence. The only sounds came from panicked breathing. She brought up her spare magazine as she ejected the empty one, and after giving the slide a sure tug, the pistol was ready again.

Kirche's rifle darted back and forth. "Was... is that it?"

"I hope so," Siesta breathed. She stuck her head out in the open and not a second later another arrow hissed by. "Shit!" She yelled, pulling her head back in. Her pistol came out, and she fired wildly into the darkness. "Fuck off with your stupid fucking arrows!"

"Siesta!" Kirche cried, pulling the girl back. "For God's sake, you're just wasting your bullets!"

"I don't care!" Siesta holstered her pistol and retrieved her rifle from nearby. "My boot is going right up that fucker's ass, even if it's the last thing I ever do!"

Kirche saw the green flashes again, followed by shrill, confused cries. She sighed dejectedly, and brought up her Kalashnikov once again. "Oh great."

* * *

Louise depressed the talk button on her radio. "Siesta, do you copy?" The rather inconspicuous side entrance they had used to originally gain entrance to the largest structure in the factory complex loomed a few meters ahead. The trip back to Yanov had been monotonous and heart-wrenchingly boring, but convincing Nitro to come back to the factory with them had been so much worse.

Apparently Nitro wasn't so keen on venturing into the more dangerous areas of the Zone, which made Louise wonder how he had gotten into Yanov in the first place. The route wasn't exactly pleasant or easy-going.

After a few moments, the reply came. "Send it."

"Anything interesting happen?"

There was a moment of silence. "Interesting is a word you could use."

Louise didn't like the sound of that. She was never one to beat around the bush in a situation like this. "What happened?"

 _"Alright. So I was minding my own business, right?"_

"Siesta!" Louise hissed into the radio. "Get on with it!"

 _"Fine! Fine!" Siesta replied defensively. "So I was minding my own business..."_

Louise growled loud in frustration as Siesta talked. She distinctly felt like smashing the radio over her own forehead, but she resisted. The rest of the group, plus Nitro, huddled behind her, listening in on the conversation.

 _"...then we saw this green flash, and we started getting shot at with arrows."_

Everybody shared a series of confused glances. "...Arrows?" Louise slowly said.

 _"Yeah!" Siesta answered. "A bunch of friggin' goblins started teleporting all over the place. It was so crazy!"_

"Goblins?" Louise half laughed out of sheer disbelief. "Don't be absurd."

 _"You know what? I wish I was being absurd."_

"Wish granted," Louise retorted. "Because you are."

 _"Louise..." It was no trouble to tell Siesta had gotten a little annoyed. "Look. This room is clear, but I don't know about any of the other ones. Just be careful, alright? You wouldn't want an arrow up your ass."_

Louise stuffed the radio back in its pouch and readied her rifle. A brilliantly idiotic situation, she felt.

* * *

"Holy shit!" Torba remarked, astonished. He nudged the corpse with his foot. "That's totally a goblin man."

Mitay looked over his shoulder. "How would you know? How many goblins have you seen before?"

Torba sucked his teeth. "Hey, Siesta said they were goblins on the radio, and look, that's goblin enough for me."

Leaving the two bantering men behind, Louise and Montmorency briefly accompanied Grizzly and Nitro before leaving them to join the three stalkers standing near the control room stairs. Thankfully they hadn't encountered much of anything weaving through the building. The only signs of life had been some crows that had come in through the hole in the roof above the helicopter. They had been busily pecking away at the slain pseudodogs. Siesta leaned back onto the railing, arms crossed, looking unimpressed.

"Goblins," was the first thing Siesta said. "Told you."

"You can gloat later," Louise hissed scathingly. She pointed towards one of many corpses. "What happened in here?"

"They started teleporting all over the place, I said that already."

Kirche let out a very visible shudder. "Some of them were just too close. I swear if I had been standing four feet to my right one of them would have teleported inside of me! I don't think I could take something like that."

Both Montmorency and Louise screwed up their faces at the idea. That would have certainly been an unpleasant, nightmarish mess.

"I got shot by one of them too." Siesta fingered the hole the broad-tipped arrow had cut in her plate carrier. "Scared the crap out of me."

While Louise moved forward and eyed the hole for herself, Montmorency almost broke into a balk. "How could you be so cavalier about being shot?"

"Well it never actually went through," Siesta replied, shrugging. She motioned to the men, who were all gathered around the generator. "Did Nitro put up much of a fight?"

Louise snorted. "We just had to wave enough money in front of his face."

"He'll get it running in no time," Siesta said, smirking. She draped her arms around Kirche's and Montmorency's shoulders. "So how do you guys feel about some sightseeing in Pripyat?"

Montmorency blinked. "N-now wait just a minute!"

* * *

 _A/N: I did a lot of looking around online to get a half-assed layout of the Jupiter Factory, in both screenshots and my own gameplay, and from pictures of the actual Jupiter Factory (Google image search 'Jupiter Factory', you'd be surprised at how many pictures of sunglasses there are. Seriously)._

 _Also, one may note of the extreme amount of time it has taken me to get this chapter out. I don't have an excuse, as there is no particular reason for it. I won't blame work, because ever since I've started the story I've been working. I was feeling uninspired, I suppose._

 _But damn, when I idly perused tvtropes one fateful day, I discovered that this is now not only recommended, but it has its own tropes page! THAT makes me fucking moist (kidding, but not really). So I've jumped back into the fray, so to speak. This chapter went through about six iterations before I finally settled on this version, because come on fellow writers, we've all had THOSE chapters before. That still doesn't excuse the amount of time. This all happened in about a two week period lol._

 _More Alexander adventures in the next chapter. I know more of you want to see more of him in Halkeginia. I'll start kicking it up a bit in the chapters to come._

 _Some of you may also notice that I've left out the whole underpass being filled with poison gas thing. There's a reason for that._


	34. The Road to Pripyat IX

_The Road to Pripyat IX_

 _The Jupiter Factory_

 _16:34_

Montmorency reflected, as Louise helped her secure the straps on her gasmask, that she had quite a few serious reservations about what they had gotten themselves into. Nitro had gotten the generator running within a few hours, and after that it was only minutes before the cargo lift was deemed operational by the technician. Mitay had insisted that he knew it was going to work the entire time, because it was Soviet made. Montmorency honestly couldn't tell if that had been a joke or not.

So she decided to express her concerns to the highest authority she trusted. Worryingly, that was Siesta. "What's the big deal?" The veteran stalker said before sealing the mask over her face. "From one shithole to another."

Nitro had seemed a little worried to be stuck trudging back to Yanov on his own, and Grizzly seemed genuinely surprised to hear that Siesta was bringing her group along to Pripyat as well. As he sat there, shaving the whiskers from his face so his gasmask would have a sure seal, he seemed happy to hear it. Montmorency still wasn't so sure what she thought of Siesta as a person. The stalker was an awfully strange woman, but it couldn't be denied that Siesta was a veritable artist with that rifle of hers. During the few training sessions they'd had, Montmorency had witnessed Siesta pull off what she would consider questionable feats of accuracy. Siesta had sheepishly admitted that making those shots while somebody else was trying to kill her was basically a non-option.

The cargo lift jolted again for what felt like the millionth time. Montmorency was beginning to believe this shaft was actually endless. It wouldn't have surprised her, really. The story Louise and Siesta had once relayed about being stuck in an infinite loop of the same room always made her feel a little troubled.

"Yeah, Monmon," Kirche spoke up. Her mask was already secured, and her voice muffled. "I mean, you and Tabitha have done more moving around than Louise and I have, right? If I woke up one day and knew I had to get through the Red Forest I'd probably just stay home."

Siesta let off a muffled snort. "The Red Forest isn't that bad anymore. The Monolith was what made it hell."

Montmorency bit her lip. The anomalies there had been more than enough for her, and the damned silence. No forest should be that quiet. "Excuse me if I'm still not quite over almost having my head blown to pieces."

"I don't think your head would have actually –"

"I know that, Siesta!" Montmorency snapped. "It's an expression, isn't it? You know, I remember this one time when we were being stupid, and we followed some stupid man to some stupid village full of stupid zombies, and you said that you weren't interested in going to stupid Pripyat!"

For reasons unbeknownst to Montmorency, her little tirade seemed to have gotten a few laughs out of Mitay and Torba, while Grizzly just sort of playfully rolled his eyes as he worked at his gasmask. Kirche barked out a single laugh of her own, Tabitha said nothing, and Louise yanked hard on her straps, bringing Montmorency backwards in a stumble. The mask was sealed over her face now, and it didn't help that she had already been sweating to begin with.

"All done," Louise announced tiredly. She had been able to fit her mask to her own head with nobody's help. "Should I tie your laces as well?"

"Shut up!" Montmorency hissed. For a moment, she realized that the old roles had reversed. No longer did she tease Louise. Louise teased her.

"Well I do remember doing something stupid like that," Siesta said, threading in one of her screw-on filters. "But I think my words were more like, 'I've gotta stir up some trouble first.'"

Kirche laughed again. "We definitely stirred up something around here, didn't we?"

"Damn straight." Siesta brought up her hand, and she and Kirche bumped fists.

"Are you sure that's what you said?" Montmorency asked, a little desperately. "There's no way you could remember that."

"I have a memory like a hawk, Monty," Siesta told her. Kirche burst into yet another gust of laughter, and this time the men joined her.

At Montmorency's side, a sigh wormed its way out through Louise's filters. "I believe the saying is eyes like a hawk, Siesta."

"Yeah?" Siesta's retort was clear as day. She raised a certain finger on her right hand and thrust it forth towards Louise. "You see this, hawk eyes?"

Louise ignored the gesture and turned back to Montmorency. "And you should know by now that Siesta changes her mind on a moment's notice." Louise remembered one specific instance near the sawmill in Zaton, where Siesta had said before that she didn't need a newer fully-automatic weapon, but when presented with the opportunity to earn one as a reward she had suddenly been dead set on it. Even now Louise thought that was rather dumb, because Siesta had literally only used that Kalashnikov once.

But Montmorency wasn't done. "This... it just seems like an ill-made decision."

"Then you should have stayed up top," Torba suggested while checking his magazine pouches. He was a little annoyed to notice that one was missing its velcro patch, and would no longer stay closed. When or how that had happened was beyond him. "I'm sure Nitro would have kept you warm."

The group broke out into laughter, and this time Montmorency could tell that even Louise might have been chuckling from the bob of her head. Montmorency fumed inside her mask. "I don't want Nitro to... sh-shut up! All of you!"

"Well if you don't want Nitro to do it, then who?" Siesta teased. "Louise is off limits. She's mine."

It seemed the sights of teasing would never leave Louise unscathed either. Montmorency couldn't see the pink-haired girl's face, but she suspected it might have turned red. Louise stepped forward, and brought a fist across Siesta's upper arm. "I am most definitely not yours."

"But I found you first."

"That doesn't mean you own me! I'm not a lost puppy!"

The lift jolted again. Montmorency craned her head upwards, watching as the square of dim light continued to shrink. How could everybody be throwing playful jabs back and forth? Montmorency was convinced that they were about to encounter something hellish at the bottom of this shaft.

Her stomach clenched itself around into a knot when she saw the gate. It was a network of rusted metal bars and mesh, spanning across the entire width of the shaft. Beyond was pure pitch-darkness. Everybody seemed to ready themselves as one, while only Montmorency was left to shakily deactivate the HK-33's safety. When the lift ground to a violent halt all was silent, until the gate began to lift, rattling and shaking.

Their flashlights illuminated the passage a few dozen yards ahead. It was wide, enough for at least four trucks to park abreast, and it was tall as well, with rotund pipes following the ceiling. The passage curved left ahead, and at the edges of the intended roadway were thick support columns in even intervals. On the left there was an elevated walkway bordered by striped safety railing, and littered about the roadway were more derelict vehicles than any of them cared to count.

Grizzly was the first into the passage, his detector held out. "I'm not picking up anything. Seems all clear to me."

"We should wait a while before we take the masks off," Siesta put in, stepping up to his side. "I'd be just our luck to walk headfirst into a cloud of acid fog, or some shit."

"Yeah, that'd –" Torba started, but a noise from far along the tunnel echoed back. The metallic clang of something smacking the floor. "Shit!" He squeaked. "What was that?"

Siesta eyed him. "How should we know? Want me to gaze into my crystal ball?"

"If you had one I'd shove it down your throat."

That got a laugh from the veteran stalker. "Let's go check it out, hm? What's the worst thing it could be?"

Montmorency shifted. "Bloodsuckers," she suggested. Miraculously, she had somehow avoided any confrontations with the invisible beasts as of yet, but the stories were enough for her. The idea of some invisible predator lusting her for her blood was something to keep her up at night.

"No," Louise told her. "Pseudogiants. Six of them. That would be the worst."

Kirche snorted. "Do you think six of those things even exist at one time?"

"Well they have to come from somewhere, don't they?"

"They do," Mitay joined in. "Ask the bloodsuckers. They might know."

Siesta gave them all a look. "If you guys wanna cuddle and whisper sweet nothings you can do it later. Let's move."

From behind her lenses, Louise returned the same look. "But you started –"

"Shut up, Louise."

Montmorency watched as Louise moved past on Siesta and Grizzly's heels, muttering curses behind her mask. Surely Kirche wouldn't even find that amusing right about now. Falling into step next to Mitay, Montmorency held her rifle ready, and as an afterthought, brought the selector from semi to fully-automatic. Ahead, Tabitha walked at Kirche's side, so short and tiny she almost looked like a child.

"Up on the walkway," Grizzly suggested, and for a split second Montmorency thought he was calling out the location of something unfriendly. "Let's stay away from all these trucks. Easy spot to get jumped."

That sounded much more pleasant to Montmorency than worming through the maze of flatbed trucks. She kept as far left as she could, closest to the smooth concrete wall. The place looked as if it hadn't been touched in ages. No doubt a musty smell hung about the air, but Montmorency didn't catch it through her filters. Sweat poured from her brow.

"You really think anything's hanging out down here?" Torba asked. "I mean, the place was sealed up, right?"

"On this end," Mitay said dourly. "The other side could be wide open for all we know."

Listening, Montmorency realized that was a distinct possibility. The Founder could only know what kind of hellish nightmares were lurking about this legend of a city known as Pripyat. Hastily lashed to the forend of her rifle, the flashlight burned a yellow cone that illuminated only her feet, for fear of sweeping the muzzle across Kirche's back.

Another crash echoed off the walls, and the entire group ground to a halt. Louise was the one to let out a rather nervous breath. "I am not so thrilled about this."

Up ahead, the passage intersected with another of the same kind, chocked up with trucks and jeeps. Interestingly, the majority of them were mostly, if not completely intact. They had gathered a generous film of dust over the years they'd apparently been down here, and their tires had all gone flat. At the edge of her attention Montmorency overheard Kirche asking if it were at all possible for any of these vehicles to move again.

"Probably," Grizzly told her. "But they'd need a bit of work, like the generator, y'know? The fuel goes bad when it sits like that for so long."

When they reached the intersection the walkway came to an end. Montmorency was the first to direct her flashlight left, revealing yet more vehicles, and mountains of concrete slabs, supports, rebar, and earth. The tunnel had suffered a collapse.

Torba groaned. "Guess we're not going that way."

"The other way looks fine," Siesta said. She gazed across to the opposite side of the intersecting tunnel. "Walkway's on the other side."

Grizzly saw. "We'll cross then."

The path that would take them to the next walkway was a narrow snaking corridor between bumpers and tailgates. Grizzly led the way, and Montmorency found herself in the unfortunate position of taking up the rear. She swept her rifle right first, but whirled to her left when sound of metal hitting the concrete roadway came from unbearably nearby. Her flashlight barely caught a black shape scurrying out of sight, and everybody froze.

"That... th-that..." Montmorency could barely get her mouth open. She knew well enough that she had been the only one to witness that. She could hear the others shouting and cursing, but Montmorency couldn't make any of it out. The shape came back, grotesquely crawling out from under a truck. Montmorency recognized the beast immediately. "S-snork... SNORKS!"

Squatting back on its haunches, the snork bared twisted and sharpened teeth, and leapt screaming.

* * *

 _Aboard the St. Andrew_

 _22:37_

The sensation of a windship casting off felt rather bizarre to Alexander. He'd flown on plenty of aircraft, airplanes and helicopters alike, and this was nothing like either of them. Perhaps it was more like flying on an airship. He watched the famed White Isle shrink into the clouds.

He and Matilda had come to discover that there were no ships flying into Tristain. The shipping lanes had essentially been shut down, absolutely nothing in or out. Gallia and Germania both had their borders locked down, and that presented a particular problem for Alexander, but he was sure it was nothing he couldn't work around. Neither of the neighboring kingdoms wanted anything to do with Tristain, since they had apparently somehow earned the wrath of their god and Founder, so the ship he had secured passage aboard was bound for a port in Gallia.

It was entirely up to him to find a way into Tristain. Matilda told him of one place where the border guard might be the most lax. There was a dense forest region east of Tristain, forming the border between Germania and Gallia. That was his best bet for finding an unguarded route into Tristain, Matilda had told him. He would have to travel through a place known as the Black Forest, and that sounded a little foreboding to Alexander, even more so than the Red Forest.

Then it would be onwards toward Tristain's capitol, along with the task of contacting Éléonore de la Valliére. Informing the Valliére family of the last known status of their youngest daughter was on his to-do list, to be sure, but finding some sort of way out of this strange reality ranked much higher. As interesting as he thought this place was, he couldn't stay here forever. Having prior obligations, Alexander had to find a way back to the nastiness of the Zone.

Tristain seemed to be the center of this mess. So far, it seemed his best bet was there. When he let it slip to a few members of the crew Tristain was his ultimate destination, they thought he was absolutely nuts.

"There's nothin' there for anyone nowadays," the first mate had said to him, puffing thoughtfully on a pipe. He was an older, bearded man. "I seen it for myself – a cursed land."

Alexander's own beard had grown in as well since his last shave. Perhaps he should take care of that sometime soon. He didn't favor the 'mountain man' look that was surely on the horizon. Right now he thought he was comfortably in the 'burly lumberjack' category. "Maybe," he said, leaning on the railing. "But I have important business there."

As a parting gift, Matilda had performed some translation magic on him, gifting him with the Tristanian language. It was an odd feeling, suddenly knowing an entire language, and it had been hell on his throat. Knowing Tristanian would be a definite advantage. Tristain and Albion had once been in a close alliance so many of the educated citizens could speak Albionese, but that wasn't to say the farmer or beggar he might have to ask for directions would have any clue what he was talking about.

The first mate was Albionese, thankfully. Despite the spell, Alexander was still a little unsure about his Tristanian. The old man hummed, and turned away. "All you youngins are too quick to throw your lives away."

Alexander wanted to snort. His thirtieth birthday had already come and gone. While not particularly old, he certainly didn't feel like a 'youngin.' It was almost a shame he had become separated from Matilda and Tiffania. They had certainly been an interesting pair of women, and he had almost stayed in Albion solely to remain with them. It would be a lie if he said he hadn't taken a little liking to Matilda, but she outright refused to bring Tiffania to such a dangerous place as the current Tristain. Matilda had wished him the best of luck, and the ever soft-hearted Tiffania had even shed a few tears.

So here he was, alone, with everyone telling him that he was on a journey towards some cursed land that would surely chew him up and spit him out – an unsettling thought. It made him wonder, how bad could it actually be? It couldn't be any worse than the real Zone.

It took less than ten seconds for Alexander to take that back, although he was sure he'd sorely regret thinking it later.

* * *

"Monty! Where's your damn mask!?"

Tabitha saw Montmorency's bruising tear-streaked face round angrily on Louise as she wrenched the magazine from her emptied rifle. "The bloody snork took it!"

"The snork!?"

The Sudaev's muzzle spat fire in the dark. Tabitha's bullet's raked across a snork's back who had been trying to get the jump on Kirche, and the she fired at another bounding straight for her. As the limp beast skidded to her feet on the grimy floor, Tabitha was thankful that the bullets diligently did their work. She thumbed the Sudaev's release and dropped the empty magazine, not bothering in the least to retain it right now, and fumbled with her pouches for a new one. During times like these, Tabitha yearned for the relative simplicity of her staff. Sure, a mage could run dry on willpower, but a machine gun ran dry on bullets so much faster.

Almost in the same instant, the gunfire came to a drastic halt. Tabitha's ears were completely muffled and left ringing, and that feeling didn't fade even after a few moments. She stuck her pinky finger inside and wriggled it about, hoping to drive the discomfort away.

"Shit!" Torba breathed, swapping out a half-empty magazine for a full one. "Freaking snorks, man."

"Is everyone alright?" Grizzly called.

Montmorency felt her hands cross her cheeks. "One of them took my mask!" She complained again.

In a near instant, Siesta was there with her flashlight obnoxiously in Montmorency's face. The latter hissed as the light burned at her retinas. "You're gonna have a black eye."

"That's the least of my concerns right now!" Montmorency said back. "I don't even have a mask now. What if we waltz into some... some of that acid fog or something?"

"We'll warn you," Torba said jokingly. "So then at least you can prepare for a horrible death."

"Shut up, Torba!" Montmorency squealed.

"Yeah, for once, I agree." Siesta turned her masked face onto Torba's, no doubt with a glare gracing her features. "Shut the fuck up." Torba spread his arms an upturned a palm in response, as if to insist that he had truly done nothing wrong. "Look, you just keep taking up the rear, alright? If we run into any shit like that our detectors are gonna start going nuts anyway, so we'll know."

Montmorency let out a shaky breath. "Alright... alright." Before leaving her, Siesta gave her one last reassuring pat on the shoulder. "It stinks down here..."

Louise sidled up to Montmorency's side, just as Tabitha was doing the same. "What does it smell like?" Louise asked, curious.

"Death," Montmorency muttered.

"Must be nice."

The group started off into motion again, and this time Tabitha found herself alongside both Louise and Montmorency as they all took up the rear. It was a blessing to be up on the walkway once again, but Tabitha couldn't help but think of how she had expended two entire magazines in only seconds. Seventy rounds she would never see again, and who could know when she might come across more? The Vintorez hanging from her back only had a handful of spare magazines, and Tabitha wasn't exactly confident in her ability to gaze through the spyglass-like sight and pick a man off. She had only used one rifle before, and the Mosin and the Vintorez were two very different beasts.

It seemed as if they were going to make good progress, until the end of the blocked tunnel came into view. Everybody stopped, and Tabitha could easily see Grizzly's shoulders droop. "You have to be shitting me," he groaned.

"Bad luck," Kirche commented.

And Siesta snorted. "If we didn't have bad luck we wouldn't have any at all."

Louise looked. "Have you said that before? I think you have."

"Probably. I say a lot of stupid stuff, don't I?"

"You do."

But the tunnel wasn't blocked, per say. Tabitha looked it over, and realized that it was just a door, one gigantic door. It spanned the entire width of the roadway, with its dull green paint flaking away to expose cancerous blots of rust. There was no way to tell how thick it was, but for some reason Tabitha imagined it to be feet, rather than inches.

"Think we can open it?" Mitay asked.

"No way," Grizzly told him. "I don't think that generator up top powers anything else down here."

Montmorency glanced about nervously. "Should... should we go back then?"

"Now, now, Monty," Siesta admonished teasingly. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"That snork took it with my mask!"

"There has to be some other way," Grizzly said, hopeful. "Let's move up and look around."

It didn't take much looking around at all to discover what was up. There was a panel set into the wall that controlled the door, but it was utterly unresponsive. High up there were ventilation shafts, their grates smashed out. Mitay guessed that was where the snorks had gotten through. Siesta had jokingly thrown out the idea of getting Tabitha to crawl through it and see what was on the other side, and Tabitha wasn't completely opposed to that as long as she could fit, but Louise had promptly informed Siesta that her idea was stupid and she should shut up.

On the left, however, was a metal door with maintenance painted across its surface. Grizzly tried it first, and the thing wouldn't budge an inch. The handle wouldn't even turn. It seemed to be locked, and since it was metal kicking it down seemed to be a poor choice.

Siesta approached, grinning, with the intent to come to the rescue. "I remember doing something like this once," she said jovially, brandishing a hand grenade. "But I was really saving this one for my birthday."

Nearby, Louise scoffed. She remembered that day as well. "I honestly forgot to ask back then, but why would you need a grenade on your birthday?"

"I wanted to blow up a washing machine."

"...You are a child in a woman's body."

"Hey, at least I'm not some cranky old crone in a twelve-year-old's body."

Louise seethed. "Bitch."

Kirche was next. "Well you have Louise, don't you? Who needs a grenade?"

Everybody turned on the redhead as one, some offering dark glares through their lenses, and others only confusion. "... What?" Torba asked.

"W-well... you see..." Kirche stammered.

Again, it was Siesta to the rescue. "Louise is a real firebug. She'll never admit it, but she loves blowing shit up."

Grizzly, Torba, and Mitay all turned their sights onto Louise, who only stood in place silently. Nobody could see the dour, unhappy look on her face. "Yeah..." Mitay began. "I can actually kind of see that, now that you mentioned it."

As the men and Siesta all turned their attention back to the door, Louise rounded on Kirche and brought her fist down across the Germanian's arm. "What in the bloody hell is wrong with you?" She hissed.

"It was an accident!" Kirche reasoned hotly. "Haven't you used that excuse before?"

"Yes, but back then it was valid, wasn't it? You're just being an idiot!"

"Piss off, Louise."

With that, Louise brought her mask only inches from Kirche's. "Don't you tell me to fucking piss off."

"You..."

Tabitha and Montmorency separated them both. Some might consider a classic Zerbst versus Valliére argument amusing, but now certainly wasn't the time. Besides, neither Tabitha nor Montmorency wanted to see Louise and Kirche's newfound friendship wounded. "Both of you. Stop," Tabitha hissed. "Was an accident. Leave it alone, before they hear."

Sighing, Louise backed off. She sheepishly scratched at her neck. "I... um... sorry about that. Being down here's got me a little on edge."

"Yeah... me too," Kirche admitted. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

Siesta approached, ignorant of the minor scuffle, with a length of coiled rope looped over her arm. Grizzly, Torba, and Mitay were all behind her. "We should get behind something," Siesta suggested.

Montmorency, curious, peered around the group. "What have you done over there?"

"We taped the grenade to the door," Torba said excitedly. "And Siesta tied her rope to the pin. We're gonna blow some shit up! You excited, Louise?"

Louise gave him a flat look through her mask. "Oh I am just shivering with anticipation over here."

They all huddled up behind a choice flatbed, and Siesta gave the rope a sharp tug. Seconds later, after the twin metallic rings of the spoon and pin hitting the floor, a thunderous clap ripped through the tunnel, stirring up clouds of debris and dust. Everybody advanced on the door in silence, everybody aside from Montmorency, that is. She advanced wheezing out a string harsh coughs, like to hack up one of her lungs.

But the door hadn't moved, though it had been dented inward quite dramatically. The surrounding concrete showed fair damage from the blast as well. Grizzly was first to approach the door, grumbling. "Great, that hardly did anything."

Siesta scoffed dismissively. "Don't talk shit about my 'nades."

Grizzly tugged and pushed on the door, and the thing wouldn't budge. He turned to Siesta with a sigh. "I guess we should just try another?"

"If you want, but I'm not giving you another grenade. Use your own."

Louise watched, saying nothing, as the door slowly came loose behind Grizzly's back. Everybody aside from Grizzly could see what was occurring behind him, but nobody saw fit to give him a warning. The door smacked against the floor with a great crash, sending up dust in a small cloud, and Grizzly nearly filled his underpants. "Shit!"

It was Siesta and Torba who were roaring with laughter, the most easily amused of the bunch, while Louise could hardly count herself as mildly amused. She heard a snort come from Kirche's direction, but neither Montmorency nor Tabitha seemed to be grinning at all. Then again, Louise could only make an assumption of the expression on Tabitha's face, but she suspected it hadn't shifted much.

As she calmed herself, Siesta peered into the passage beyond with her rifle up. "Looks like some kind of maintenance tunnel."

"Oh, really?" Mitay remarked in a voice heavily laden with sarcasm. "I was wondering why they had that written on the door."

Siesta whirled. "Mitay, just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't kick your ass."

Grizzly cut in. "Yeah, yeah, we all know you could probably kick Mitay's ass, Siesta."

"Hey!" Mitay protested.

"But we should scout this tunnel first," Grizzly went on. "Monty doesn't have a mask, and we don't know what we'll run into down there."

There was a moment of silence, before Siesta spoke again. "I'll go."

Grizzly eyed her. "One of yours and one of mine?"

Siesta nodded. "Alright, I'll take Torba and Tabitha then."

It seemed an odd decision to everybody, but none of those left out of the scouting mission made any protest. Tabitha went along quietly with her little Sudaev tucked under her arm, while Torba went grumbling under his breath. As the trio disappeared into the tunnel the rest took to looking for places to lounge about, though both Grizzly and Mitay seemed intent on keeping an eye on the doorway. Louise flopped down against the wall between Kirche and Montmorency with a tiny grunt.

"You don't find that odd?" Kirche asked.

Louise eyed her. "What?"

"Siesta didn't pick you."

As she worked her straps, Louise let out a soft laugh. The helmet came off first, dropped into her lap, and then the gasmask was pushed up to the top of her head. Underneath, her face glistened with perspiration. "I'm glad she didn't, actually."

Montmorency blinked. "...You are?"

"Yes." Louise pilfered her hip pocket and brought out her pack of cigarettes. "Because I really need one of these right now."

Kirche snorted out a laugh. "Oh Louise Francoise, if only they could see you now."

Lighting her cigarette, Louise scoffed. "They are nothing but sheep."

"Sheep?" Montmorency asked.

"I think, sometimes, of all the people at the Academy, of all those little busybodies with nothing else to do but talk and talk about nothing at all." Louise turned to regard the blonde. "They're no better than sheep."

Kirche hummed thoughtfully. "Do you really think so?"

Nodding, Louise blew out a smoky breath and scrunched her nose. "Monmon was right. It does smell like death down here."

* * *

 _A/N: I really have no excuse. None at all. Anyway, this was around 5K words, rather than the 10K I wanted, only because I'm posting half the chapter rather than the whole thing? How long has it been since my last update anyway? ...I don't think I want to look._

 _Anyway, I PROMISE (don't take my word on it) that I'm going to start to working on the next chapter right away._

 _Also, I don't think it was immediately obvious, but the Alexander in Halk timeline and Louise & co in the Zone timeline don't necessarily coincide with each other. One many or may not have more time skips than the other, but that's just the nature of the story I suppose._


	35. The Road to Pripyat X

_The Road to Pripyat X_

 _Pripyat Underpass_

 _17:21_

Siesta reflected, with a barely audible snort through her stuffy gasmask, that this was quite possibly the most sarcastic Torba had ever been in her presence. Ever since their impromptu reconnaissance mission into the maintenance tunnels begun Torba had seemed on edge, much more than usual, and Siesta was beginning to suspect that this was simply a coping mechanism of his.

After all, Siesta often did something similar herself, by making stupid jokes and sassy remarks. Nobody aside from Kirche had seemed to appreciate her rather simplistic brand of humor these last few months, but Siesta didn't really blame them. Making others groan aloud in their annoyance was just as much fun, after all.

Even through his filters, Torba's exasperation was undeniable. "Yeah, just fucking great!" He exclaimed, throwing his arms up. "Just what I was hoping we would run into – shit! Why don't we just head back and start crawling through the fucking vents instead?"

"Come on, Torba," Siesta said, half laughing. There was an ever-silent Tabitha at her side, still as a statue. "It's not that big a deal."

Torba whirled, pointing to the sweeping pile of rubble as though Siesta were blind. "Do you not see this? There's no way we're getting past!"

Tilting her head, Siesta observed what was laid out before her. The narrow maintenance tunnel seemed to have simply followed right alongside the main passage, bypassing the massive steel door entirely. It would have been a perfectly acceptable detour, if it wasn't for the rather substantial cave-in.

"We could totally clear some of this out, and then..." Heaving a sigh, Siesta had to concede to Torba's point. There was a small gap between the slabs of shattered concrete and twisted rebar, but it might as well have been a pinhole. Biting out a curse, her shoulders drooped. "Yeah, there's no way we're getting through there, is there?"

Finally, Torba had managed to relax. "Well... maybe if we go back... there could be another way. I mean, if we took another look around..."

"The only other way is the vents, and I doubt anyone other than Tabitha or Louise could fit through those things."

Torba let out frustrated sigh. "It's just fine for you guys," he muttered. "With Grizz and Mitay, finding a way into Pripyat has just been our thing, you know? We've been together right from the beginning. If this doesn't work out, what'll you do?"

Siesta thought it was an odd thing to ask, and just shrugged. "I dunno. Go back and do some anomaly diving in the old quarry, I guess? It's not like it's the end of the world, or anything."

And then, after not saying a word the entire time, Tabitha spoke. "...I could fit."

The both of them rounded on the short girl, who was giving off a rather intense 'creepy little kid' vibe from behind her inhuman mask. "What?" Torba asked, incredulous. "Are you nuts, kid?"

Siesta seemed to agree. "Hey, Tabitha, when I brought that up before I was just messing around, you know..."

"What if there's like... an entire freaking lair of bloodsuckers on the other side?" Torba pointed out, cradling his L85. "Or, you know, some other weird-ass shit nobody's ever seen before."

Bobbing her head in a nod, Siesta blew out a snort. "I've been in the Zone longer than the both of you put together, and yeah, there's some stuff crawling around in places like this that I haven't even seen before. There was this one time, not that long ago, at an old substation in Zaton. We were –"

"Uh, Siesta?" Torba cut in pensively, glancing her way. "I don't think this is the really the time for storytelling."

"Oh! Uh, yeah. I guess not."

With that cleared up, Torba and Siesta both decided that they should just head back to the others. Tabitha gave the gap in the twisted rubble one last look before she filed in behind the other stalkers, confident she could squeeze through. Although, it was debatable what difference it would actually make. It wasn't like she could lift that giant steel door from the other side, even with her magic. The thing was simply too big.

There hadn't been any other paths branching off from the narrow maintenance tunnel, but there had been a room where all the pipes lining the walls seemed to converge. It turned out they were all conduits, leading to a wide room filled with rows of old electrical cabinets. Siesta had honestly wondered if they could somehow get some power flowing again, considering there was a perfectly good generator humming away upstairs.

Torba hadn't been so optimistic. He was adamant that he was no electrician, and nor did he know of any electricians in the Zone. Siesta was no electrician either, that was for certain, and Nitro and all his little tools were surely long gone by now. Besides, Torba was insistent that Nitro was solely a mechanically-minded man, and all these complicated electrical systems would have been completely out of his depth.

Regardless, Siesta stopped again, jabbing her thumb towards the door. "Come on," she urged. "Let's just check it out! I mean, what could go wrong?"

Torba gave her a look, or at least Siesta thought he was giving her a look. "If Louise was here right now she'd be like – don't go saying things like that, Siesta!"

Siesta threw her head back in a laugh. Torba's impression of Louise's shrill voice was practically spot-on. "Yeah, sure, maybe if we were about to go light up some bandits or something, but we're just going to mess around with some old circuit breakers. Nobody's going to get hurt doing that."

"...What if you get electrocuted?"

That threw a wrench in Siesta's reasoning. "Well... I, uh, didn't really think of that, actually."

"It's a good thing you have that chick around," Torba pointed out. "Seems like she keeps you from getting yourself smoked."

Siesta pouted behind her mask. "Hey – I survived for four years before I even met her," she told him defensively. "Give me some credit here!"

Shrugging, Torba ducked into the room, laboriously prying at his mask. "Whatever," he grunted, pushing it up to the top of his head. "Let's check it out then, but you gotta bum me a smoke while we're here."

With a snort, Siesta followed him inside, working at her own mask. "Fine," she breathed, taking in a deep breath of stale air that she nearly coughed right back out. "I didn't even know you smoked."

"I don't, really," Torba admitted. "Not often, but this place... shit, it's really got me freaked out for some reason."

Tabitha opted to leave her own mask on, simply because she didn't see a reason to take it off. It wasn't like she was a smoker, and she certainly didn't plan on becoming one. The gasmask also seemed to block out most smells, and honestly, Tabitha didn't find herself fond of the stench of cigarette smoke.

Watching, Tabitha stood back a little ways as the stalkers lit their cigarettes and began unceremoniously popping open panel doors at random. The messes waiting inside the cabinets were totally beyond Tabitha's understanding.

"Shit," Torba swore, leaning into a particular panel box with Siesta at his side. "Most of them are fuses – no breakers? How old is this stuff?"

Siesta opened the adjacent panel. "Well who knows? Oh – I think there's some in here."

Torba joined her. "Yeah. Looks like the main leads are all on breakers, but... everything else is on fuses? Man, this junk is way over my head."

While the two stalkers continued to poke within the guts of the panel, Tabitha, feeling restless, opted to pace around the room. The electrical equipment was a sure sign that the people who had once built this place were part of a great civilization, but Tabitha knew she was only looking at old ruins. The world outside of the Zone must have been truly amazing.

Tabitha peered inside a particularly large metal cabinet that seemed to have been left open, shining her flashlight into veritable spider web of messy guts that made up the panel box. There were also a number of actual spider webs, it seemed. She definitely couldn't blame Torba for claiming that something like this was beyond him, because Tabitha didn't have a sweet clue what she was looking at.

But she knew a few things about this world, and its amenities. At the top of the panel was a big switch, meant to be thrown sideways. Since there was no electricity flowing through here at all, then she felt it was safe enough for some idle poking around. Tabitha flipped the switch sideways, and nearly filled her pants as a result.

Reeling backward, the room seemed to have instantly sprung to life, and her eyes burned under the glow of the lights mounted on the ceiling. Nearby, she heard both Siesta and Torba cry out in fright, spitting obscenities all the while, and it wasn't even a second later when Siesta came flying around the corner into view.

"What the hell, Tabitha?" The shock was clearly evident on her face, and Torba wasn't far behind, cigarette pinched in the corner of his mouth. "What did you just do?"

At a loss, Tabitha stood back, shrugging. "I... don't really know."

Torba leaned into the panel Tabitha had wantonly decided to mess around with. "Ah... no way..."

"What is it?" Siesta asked.

"All this shit does run off that generator upstairs," Torba explained, brushing the dust away from the metal plaque. "Most of it, I guess. This is the main feed. I think... you know how, way back when, there was that first ever emission, right?"

Siesta nodded. "Yeah."

"Well, maybe there was some kind of surge back then, hey? Since we're so close to Pripyat I guess all these breakers tripped, so all this stuff's just been turned off ever since then. Most of it might actually still work... huh."

Laughing, Siesta threw down the remains of her cigarette. "Damn. Way to go, Tabitha, you totally saved the day."

And then, all at once, a deep rumbling groan began to echo up from deeper within the underpass, sending a dull quake through the concrete beneath their feet. Siesta looked to the ceiling as dust and grime began to fall around her, and saw one of the ancient light fixtures swinging gently.

She shared a bewildered glance with Torba, before realization quickly struck. "Shit! That's the door!"

Before they could even think to move, the trio suddenly found themselves draped in pitch darkness once again as all of the fuses in the room chose that moment to blow at an astonishing rate. Shrieking, Siesta stumbled backward from the tall electrical cabinet as a bright gout of sparks seemed to shoot right for face, and Torba didn't fare much better as he unceremoniously spat out his cigarette and fell backward onto his rear.

It had lasted only seconds, but for a moment Tabitha had thought somebody might have begun firing a machine gun in the room with them. Lowering her arms, the room was deathly silent for just a hair of a moment, before the curses began to spill from Siesta like water.

As Siesta tried to collect herself, Torba got to his feet with a grumble, reactivating his flashlight. "Well, at least you tried, Tabitha."

"Hey, Torba," Siesta said, worry heavy in her voice. "Over here, quick."

Swinging his flashlight, Torba highlighted Siesta's sweaty and concerned face. Her cheeks seemed to have picked up several black streaks and smudges in the past few minutes. "...Do I still have my eyebrows?" She asked tentatively.

Torba laughed, lowering the flashlight. "Yeah, your eyebrows are just fine."

"Good," Siesta breathed, retrieving her helmet from the floor. "This one time, I almost got caught in a burner, and it scorched my eyebrows right off. I looked like a fucking weirdo for weeks."

The distant groaning seemed to have faded once the fuses had blown, and neither Torba nor Siesta suspected the power had been going long enough for that massive door in the main passage to be opened, so the trio then decided that it would now be best to head back to the others, and relay the unfortunate news.

As they began to near the main passage they could hear shouting in the main passage, and a whole lot of commotion. For a moment Siesta was wondering what might be going on, until the thunderous cracks of gunfire echoed up through the maintenance tunnel, and then she was breaking into a run with Torba and Tabitha not far behind.

Flying out through the door, only Mitay was left standing up on the walkway, his gangly Tokarev rifle pointed towards the massive steel door while smoke curled away from the muzzle brake. Down on the roadway were Grizzly and Kirche, their Kalashnikovs shouldered, and Louise and Montmorency were hastily bringing up the rear as they readied their own rifles.

The door was open, yes. Only about two feet, though. It was pitch black through the sliver of an opening they had managed to unintentionally create, but apparently those two or so feet were more than enough for the snorks to start slipping through. Most of the fuses had blown, but it seemed that a small number might have still been working. On the far side of the door a beacon light was spinning away.

Siesta laughed aloud. "Tabitha! It totally worked!"

Mitay whirled around, nearly falling over. "Shit! Siesta, what the hell? Don't freaking sneak up on me like that! Are you trying to get shot?"

"Settle down, Mitay," Torba scoffed. "How did you not hear us running?"

"I'm freaking deaf right now," Mitay muttered unhappily. "This damn rifle, man... I swear I'm getting a new one after this."

"Grizz told you it was a bad idea, bro."

"Yeah, but I thought it looked cool, alright?" Mitay turned back to Siesta. "So what the hell were you guys doing in there anyway? All the lights and shit came back on for a few seconds, and then the freaking door started moving."

Siesta raised an eyebrow. "It just started moving on its own?"

"Well," Mitay scratched behind his ear, shrugging. "I think Grizzly –" Just then, another pair of snorks decided that it was the perfect time to try crawling underneath the door, only to be quickly dispatched by some choice rounds from Louise and Montmorency's rifles. "– Shit! Anyway, I think Grizzly was messing around with that switchbox over there, and I guess he left it on or something, so once the power came back..."

"But it was only on long enough to open it, like..." Torba tilted his head. "Two feet?"

Mitay nodded. "Yeah, but that's enough, I guess."

"Enough for the freaking snorks."

Leaving Mitay and Torba to their banter, Siesta strode ahead and vaulted over the railing, descending to the roadway below with Tabitha not far behind, who chose to quietly slip underneath the safety railing instead. Almost immediately Louise seemed to notice their presence, and stomped over with Montmorency on her heels.

"Siesta!" Louise hissed, her gasmask hanging from her belt. "What were you three doing back there?"

"We turned the power on," Siesta told her, shrugging. "For like, a few seconds."

Louise rolled her eyes. "Yes, we noticed that. How did you get the power on?"

"Tabitha did it," Siesta explained, motioning to the shorter girl at her side. "We were messing around in some old electrical room, and she threw a random breaker. Turned everything back on, but then all the fuses started blowing."

Montmorency blinked, cradling the HK33. "She... threw it? Why did she throw it?"

"She didn't literally throw it, Monty," Siesta said, laughing. She moved past, towards Grizzly. Just as she neared, another snork chose that moment to poke its masked face into the light, only to meet with the business end of Kirche's Kalashnikov. Two rounds in quick succession turned the mindless creature into a motionless heap in less than a second.

Grizzly gave Siesta a nod, and the rest of the group began to gather. "So you had the power on?"

Siesta pointed to the spinning beacon. "It's still on, I guess. Most of the fuses just blew." She directed the flashlight lashed to the forend of her G3A3 towards the opening. It just looked like more of the same on the other side. "So what's the plan now?"

Grizzly seemed to think the answer was obvious. "Well we got a way through, so let's keep going?"

From nearby, Montmorency balked. "Wait – you want us to crawl through there?"

Sparing the nervous blonde a glance, Grizzly shrugged. "What's the big deal? Better than squeezing through the vents."

Mitay nodded. "The vents might be fine for the snorks, but definitely not for me, man."

"B-But... what if it falls on one of us?"

"It'll be fine," Grizzly told her, flapping a hand dismissively. "So... who wants to go first?"

Instantly, Torba was the first one to speak up. "Fuck that."

Mitay broke out into laughter. "You freaking pussy!"

"Hey I went on Siesta's little recon mission," Torba pointed out tiredly. "That means I should be like... exempt from having to go through there first."

Siesta nodded. "Yeah, I agree," she said immediately.

"Me too," added Tabitha.

Groaning, Grizzly's shoulders drooped. "Come on, guys..."

Kirche shot him a smirk. "Why don't you go first, then?"

"Well, uh..."

Rolling her eyes, Louise stepped forward with an exasperated sigh. "Fine. If you're all too busy being a bunch of cowards, then I'll be the one to go first."

Montmorency seemed to reach for her, but retracted her arm at the last moment. "Are... are you sure, Louise?"

"No, not really," Louise admitted easily, dropping to her knees and shining her light underneath the door. Siesta was soon at her side, doing the same. "Well I don't see any more snorks."

"Just get through as fast as you can, alright?" Siesta told her. "Cover me when you get to the other side, and then I'll be right behind you. Just don't go freaking out halfway through, pretending some monster grabbed you or some shit."

Louise shot her a sharp look, securing her helmet. "What? That's just something you would do!"

Siesta snorted, grinning. "Yeah, I guess so. Just be careful, alright? I don't know what I'd do without my evil little henchwoman."

Ignoring Siesta's odd remark, Louise got flat on her belly and cradled her carbine out in front of her face. She quickly came to discover that there was one thing that unsettled her nearly as much as extreme heights – confined spaces. The door wasn't just several inches, or maybe even an entire foot thick. No, by her hasty estimation it was about three, maybe even four feet thick.

As she crawled it suddenly began to feel like it was three miles thick instead, but Louise did her best to shrug the feeling away. Her head emerged on the other side, and sweeping her rifle one way, Louise only saw more rows of old trucks, all of them long forgotten.

Louise swept the muzzle of her rifle the other way, and under the glow of her flashlight a stocky shape darted away behind the nose of a truck. Her heart skipped a beat, and with a shriek of fright Louise reflexively let loose two rounds into the darkness, her bullets shooting showers of sparks as they ricocheted elsewhere into the depths of the underpass.

And then the next thing she knew her rifle was flying out of her hands, and Louise could only watch, horrified, as her flashlight's beam spiraled across the passage. Distantly, she could hear her rifle clatter to the floor what must have been a hundred feet away, and after that she was being yanked backward by her ankles

Everybody had been calling to her, but somehow Louise hadn't even had the presence of mind to hear them. Bewildered from her sudden and sickeningly familiar experience, Louise could only stare back at everyone's concerned and masked faces before the words finally came to her.

Louise looked down at her empty hands. "It... it took my gun..." She muttered, before the reality truly hit her, and she rocketed to her feet. "It took my gun! Damnit! I paid a lot of money for that!"

"Hey!" Grizzly barked, having already tried to get her attention several times now. Firmly, he slapped a hand down on her shoulder. "What the hell did you see?"

"I don't know!" Louise admitted, flabbergasted. She unclasped her chinstrap, suddenly wanting nothing more than to have the blasted helmet off of her head. "It was kind of short, and... it just... it took the gun right out of my hands!"

Nearby, the rest of the group shared confused glances, while Siesta shifted awkwardly. "Maybe I shouldn't have said that before... about a monster grabbing you or something."

Torba blew out a single laugh. "Yeah, you totally jinxed her."

"Never mind that!" Louise snapped. "I lost my rifle! I liked that rifle! This is the second time something like this has happened to me!"

A particularly disturbing memory seemed to come rushing back to Kirche, and nearly all the color drained from her face. She turned to Siesta. "Oh God... do you remember that time, underneath the ranger station...?"

"Oh, you mean when..." Siesta trailed off, and then she was on Louise in milliseconds. "Was it a controller?"

Nearly everyone recoiled away from the two girls, as if they had suddenly grown an extra set of limbs. "A controller!? Torba squeaked. "What the hell? You think it was a freaking controller?"

"No – hey!" Louise hissed, before the man could get out of control. "It wasn't a controller, alright? Controllers do things to your mind, but this thing... all it did was take my gun from me!"

"But a controller did that same thing to you, remember?" Kirche pointed out, which did very little to calm anybody's nerves.

Louise did remember, because she often missed that particular Kalashnikov dearly, especially with its handy illuminated sight. There was also the matter of when Siesta had nearly stabbed her in a fit of rage with her knife, but Louise tried to forget that minor detail. "I know, Kirche, but I don't think it was a controller."

Grizzly stared at her though his lenses. "Yeah, but are you sure about that? I don't think any of us want something getting in our heads..."

"Look, I know what a controller looks like," Louise told him, exasperated. "I saw one up close and personal. Kirche and Siesta did as well! That thing I saw in there looked nothing like it."

Siesta heaved a wavering sigh. "I don't know... thinking about what happened back then still kind of freaks me out. If Kirche hadn't been there I would have definitely ended up killing you."

Louise couldn't deny that, because Siesta definitely had the upper hand in regards to raw physical strength. There was a moment of silence, where everybody simply stood around awkwardly, until Mitay cleared his throat from nearby.

"So... who wants to go next?"

This time, not even Louise spoke up.

* * *

 _Eginheim, Gallia_

 _13:28_

Alexander stepped down from the wagon sporting a dreadfully sore rear end. The St. Andrew had made numerous stops at ports further and further inland along Gallia's northernmost border, a concept that somehow felt strange to Alexander. He would have felt much more at home catching a flight or a bus, or even driving the entire way himself, but such luxuries had not existed in Albion, and nor did they in Gallia.

Though, regrettably, even after a week aboard the St. Andrew the ship still hadn't brought him quite close enough to his ultimate destination, so he had been forced to either walk the rest of the way, buy a horse, or find some other mode of transportation. Seeing as how walking that far would take an absurd amount of time, and he couldn't ride a horse to save his life, Alexander opted on his third option.

Thankfully, this old travelling merchant had been heading to the small village of Eginheim anyways, and after Alexander offered to gift the pot-bellied man the Simonov carbine the trader was more than eager to let him ride along. Apparently the strange advanced weapons that had been popping up as of late were hot items, and if the trader told it true then many lords were trying to hoard the things if only to keep them out of the peasantry's hands, for fear of revolt.

The village was home to less than three-hundred, but despite that Alexander observed that the buildings themselves, few as they were, had been built rather nicely. All in all, it was a friendly-looking place, but it was so far off the main roads that Alexander couldn't help but feel wary. While they had camped the night before the trader had explained to Alexander that the people here made their living by carting lumber to the nearby towns, and now that he had laid eyes on the place it made perfect sense. Eginheim was at the edge of a vast forest stretching from one horizon to the other. The Black Forest.

According to Matilda the real meat of the forest was between Gallia and Germania, and as it neared Tristain it thinned substantially, so much so that the people living on the other side didn't even think of it as the Black Forest anymore. Matilda told him that was his only shot, one tiny place that he may slip through unnoticed.

The trader had stopped his wagon right in the village square, which made up most of the village. All the largest buildings surrounded the earthen square on three sides, while the fourth was open to the rutted track that led into town, though all of it seemed to be bordered by a tall fence of sharpened stakes. It was a normal day here, it seemed. The men labored, the woman hung out clothes to dry, and the children ran barefoot through the dirt, laughing and squealing. Once they stopped in the square many of them stopped what they were doing, and stared with suspicion in their eyes. Alexander doubted many visitors came through here.

"You'll find the path through the forest o'er yonder," the trader told him, pointing. Alexander followed his finger between two buildings, where a narrow path led through a gap in the wall opposite the one they had entered through. "I hope luck is on your side, mister."

Alexander hummed thoughtfully, watching as a small group of villagers approached the wagon. Heading them up was a young man wearing roughspun robes, solidly built with a shaggy mop of greasy hair sprouting from a head atop a thick neck. First, he addressed the trader, who must have been a familiar face. "It is good that you came again. I had begun to fear you might have been lost."

The trader laughed. "Delays, delays, Sam. The roads are busy these days, and the towns busier."

But when the young man turned to Alexander, all the friendliness was gone. "And who are you supposed to be?"

After leaving the St. Andrew behind Alexander had procured himself a hooded cloak, not only to protect himself from the elements, but to hide what was underneath. It was simply too hot here to don a stalker suit all day long, so the jacket had been traded for the green linen cloak, which was lighter and helped him to blend in, at least until he opened it. Though he had given the trader the Simonov, Alexander had requisitioned the cloth sling for himself, so that the Kalashnikov had somewhere to stay.

When Alexander parted the long cloak by placing his hands on his hips the Kalashnikov came into full view. He had the sling lengthened just about as much as he could, and it snaked around the back of his neck and under his arm, leaving the rifle hanging at his front for a quick and easy grab.

"Nobody," Alexander answered mildly, watching as some of the color drained from the young man's face. His posse seemed to grow uneasy. "Just passing through."

The young man, Sam apparently, swallowed. "You... you're one of them..."

"One of who?"

Sam promptly ignored Alexander's question, regaining some of his vivacity. "Where do you plan to go from here? The only town is back the way you came."

"I don't really see how that concerns you," Alexander said grumpily. The people in these small towns were always so keen to know which way he was heading, and where his destination laid. In the Zone nobody gave a shit. "I'm going through the forest. Why do you care?"

This Sam seemed to be quick to anger, but Alexander ignored his fuming. He heard the old trader laughing as he explained to the young man that it was worth his while to stay well out of Alexander's business. Alexander had slept most of the morning away sitting up in the wagon, and thanks to the hard wooden floor had been rewarded with the sorest ass in the history of mankind, but at least he wasn't tired.

He wasn't eager to spend the night in this little town, seeing that it was only just past midday. Time didn't feel as if it was on his side, for some reason. During his travels, Alexander had come to discover that most people were rather afraid of the place that carried such an ill name as the Black Forest, but how bad could it have been if these people were living less than one-hundred yards from the tree line?

Then again, the Army Warehouses weren't all that far from the Red Forest, but it wasn't as if the stalkers had chosen where to put the warehouses. At least the men guarding the barrier had machine guns, which had been much more necessary before the scorcher had kicked the bucket. All these people had were axes, scythes, sharpened hoes, and whatever else they could get their hands on.

"Going through the forest? Have you gone mad?" Sam spat. A youth was at his side, scrawny and clad in a green tunic. "It's too dangerous for any man."

Alexander crossed his arms over the Kalashnikov. "And you care, because...?"

Sam appeared greatly affronted. "I'm the headman of this village," he said. "And... the Black Forest is... it's dangerous these days, even more than it has ever been. We can't even log there now! I can't just let you march off to your doom without... at least warning you."

Alexander relented. "Alright, fine. Give it to me straight, what's going on in the forest?"

"There..." Sam let out a shudder. "There are... things in there – monsters!"

A sigh found its way up through Alexander's throat. It was just his luck. He managed to flash a weak smile. "So... I don't suppose anybody from here can maybe, uh, guide me through?"

Before Sam could bark out something in Alexander's face, the youth at his side spoke up, his eyes glued to his feet. "A-actually... I might be able to help you. My name is Josiah."

* * *

 _A/N: Wow. It's been a while, hasn't it?_

 _Hm. Perhaps there'll be regular updates coming in the future? Who knows?_

 _And no, before anyone asks, it didn't take me all this time to write this short chapter. I wrote it in like, two or three days. I suddenly had a burst of inspiration, for whatever reason, and coming back to this fic feels kind of... nostalgic, I guess._

 _So yeah, maybe there will be regular updates in the future._


	36. The Road to Pripyat XI

_The Road to Pripyat XI_

 _Pripyat Underpass_

With a discontented grumble, Louise stopped and heaved out something unsavory under her breath. In the back of her mind she knew that her mother surely wouldn't have approved, but she pushed those idle thoughts away in favor of more pressing matters. Louise dropped her pistol back into its nylon holster and took a knee, holding her flashlight in a reverse grip.

Tenderly, she plucked the section of broken handguard from the grimy floor, turning it over in her hand. It was just her luck, and coincidentally, that little piece of rail had been exactly where she mounted the much smaller flashlight to her M4A1. After a quick test, Louise deduced that the flashlight itself was broken as well. Sighing, she carelessly tossed it to the floor. The light metallic ring that echoed off the walls ended up being much louder than she had been expecting.

At any rate, this new development was really bugging her. Replacing her rifle's original handguard hadn't exactly been a cheap endeavor. Hawaiian had assured her when she bought the thing that it was supposed to be an easy switch, and thus a trip to see Nitro wasn't necessary. Hawaiian had only been half right. Louise didn't end up going to Nitro, but with her inexperienced hands thrown into the mix the switch certainly hadn't been easy. At least now she knew how to do it.

"Bad luck," Siesta said, looming over her shoulder. "I hope the rest of it's in one piece."

"You hope?" Louise said bitterly, rising to her feet. She played at the rim of her helmet, suddenly weary of having its weight resting on her head. "I'll be the one who's stuck with only a pistol. What are the chances I'll happen across another rifle that uses the same magazines?"

Siesta hummed. "Not that great. Maybe if you still had a Kalash it wouldn't be such a big deal."

"Believe me, I've already thought about that," Louise told her, resting her hand on the butt of her pistol. She had been carrying the stainless steel Sig Sauer for a while now, but she had yet to get much practical use out of the thing. As far as she was concerned that was the purpose of a pistol. It was a sidearm – a backup.

"So what'd you end up doing with that revolver you had?" Siesta asked suddenly. "I thought that thing was pretty cool."

"It's in the bottom of my backpack," Louise said. "I only ever used it like... twice, maybe. It was a lot of weight on my belt too and it kept pulling my pants down, so I stopped wearing it."

The others had already moved ahead, and both Louise and Siesta could see their flashlights sweeping about through the maze of dilapidated vehicles. It seemed that the unidentified mutant had all but vanished into the clammy depths of the underpass, but despite that everyone was keeping their guard up. In a place like this, literally anything could come screeching or shambling out of the darkness.

Beyond the partially-opened blast door things were nearly identical as they had been on the other side, only the underpass seemed to have fallen into a far more deplorable state of disrepair. Before, all of the dusty old vehicles had been parked in neat rows, but on this side of the massive door things were a little more haphazard. Everything had been left in complete disarray.

They decided it would be best to just move on and catch up with the others. Drawing her pistol once again, Louise crossed her left wrist under her right, pressing the backs of her hands together. That way, the flashlight would surely illuminate wherever she happened to be pointing her gun. Siesta had taught her that a while back, and it seemed to work well enough. Louise just felt a little squeamish at the idea of holding the flashlight in her teeth if she needed to reload.

Following on Siesta's heels, Louise weaved around a lopsided UAZ that seemed to have collided almost head-on with the flank of a hulking BTR. The road surface was strewn with debris, most of which were mounds of shattered concrete that had come down from the ceiling at one time or another. Sweeping her light along the walls, Louise noticed that one of the numerous concrete support pillars had managed to come loose, and now what remained of it was lying across the roadway.

Louise clambered over, and then followed Siesta again as they ducked underneath a fallen pipe that was resting against the flattened cab of a truck. The others were just ahead now, and they could both easily hear them discussing something or other.

"Some anomalies are blocking the way," Kirche told them once they caught up. The three men were still about a dozen yards ahead. "Just a bunch of whirligigs, but Mitay thinks he can see a way around them." She turned to Louise just as Montmorency and Tabitha approached. "You should go find Torba. He has your rifle."

He wasn't hard to spot, lurking awkwardly behind Grizzly and Mitay as they probed at the anomalies. Grizzly was in the middle of suggesting that they should just climb over the trucks to get around the anomalies, while Mitay was arguing that they didn't necessarily have to go so far.

"Torba," Louise greeted, business as usual. She holstered her pistol. "Kirche told me you have something of mine."

Torba had whirled at the sound of his name, and it was immediately obvious he was holding onto an extra rifle. "Oh, yeah. It was just over there, by that truck," he told her, pointing. "Looks like your flashlight broke off, though."

Accepting the rifle, Louise began to closely inspect what she could in the low light as the rest of the girls approached from behind. "I know. I found it back that way. How did the rest of it manage to get this far?"

"Who knows?" Torba said, shrugging. "Probably bounced off the top of a truck or something."

Louise didn't imagine that the hard metal roof of a truck was very bouncy at all, but nevertheless, it seemed that her rifle had come out of its impromptu flight relatively unscathed, aside from the broken handguard and the plethora of new dings and scuffs. Pulling the magazine free, Louise ran the charging handle rearward and watched as the chambered cartridge was effortlessly cycled out through the ejection port.

"Well," Louise began, unsure. She slid the magazine back into the rifle. "I guess it still works properly."

Torba blew out a snort as he turned towards Grizzly and Mitay. "I'm sure you'll find out soon enough."

There was certainly no denying the truth in that. Louise moved over towards Siesta and the other girls, trying to find somewhere bright enough to point her rifle without sweeping the muzzle across anybody. The bare iron sights didn't work particularly well without any light. She mentally debated whether or not she should have put more of her money towards some sort of illuminated sight.

"I bet they're completely off now..." She muttered to herself, sighing. "Siesta – do you have any tape on you, by any chance?"

Siesta, who had just finished saying something to Kirche, turned her back to Louise. "Should be something kicking around in my backpack somewhere. Take a look."

Louise unzipped Siesta's bulbous backpack with a grumble. "Siesta, you have almost everything known to mankind stuffed in here."

"I like to come prepared."

In her mind Louise had pictured one of those tiny black rolls of electrical tape, but after a few minutes of vivacious rummaging she managed to come up with something that was just as good. Perhaps better, even. Using the roll of duct tape, Louise painstakingly secured the flashlight to her rifle's broken handguard.

Siesta smirked. "Classy."

"Desperate times, right?" Louise tested the rifle in her grip, seating the stock against her shoulder. At least with the vertical grip the flashlight wouldn't interfere with her hand. "It definitely feels heavier now. I think the handguard's coming loose too."

"Well that flashlight's huge compared to the other one," Kirche pointed out.

"And how far did that thing go flying?" Montmorency added. "A hundred feet maybe?"

Louise thought for a moment. "Probably more, if anything."

Grizzly approached with Torba and Mitay in tow. "Looks like there might be a way through if we take the walkway. Let's go check it out."

There was a smattering of nods and grunts of agreement as the girls wordlessly fell in behind Grizzly. They still remained wary of the psychic mutant that surely lurked in some dark corner of the underpass, waiting for the perfect moment to strike at them. Louise kept her rifle in a low-ready position, the stock tucked into her shoulder. She wasn't going to let herself be caught off guard this time.

To clamber up onto the walkway they had to retreat almost all the way back to the massive blast door before they found a suitable enough gap between the wrecked vehicles. They dutifully covered one another as they took turns vaulting up onto the chest-high walkway, careful not to hit their heads against the metal railing.

Predictably, Siesta hadn't been quite careful enough when it came for her turn, but her helmet was there to prevent too much grief. However, it didn't muffle the hollow knock that echoed up the passage, and nor did it stifle the curse Siesta spat out immediately afterward. Louise couldn't do much aside from roll her eyes. At this point, she was entirely convinced that Siesta was far beyond anybody's help.

Thankfully the walkway was almost entirely free of the debris that had plagued the roadway below, aside from the few sizeable slabs of concrete that were still held together by twisting webs of rusted rebar. The anomalies up ahead dimly shimmered in the darkness, hardly visible even under the collective glare of the group's flashlights.

Heading up the column of stalkers, Mitay largely considered himself to be the resident 'anomaly navigation' expert. Drawing a bolt from his pouch he carefully eyed over what was laid out before him. Just like he had thought, there seemed to be a route through.

Mitay tossed the first, and it rang out against the floor. It was a good start. "Alright," he breathed, nodding more to himself than anybody else. "Follow behind me, single file. Try not to make too much noise, Siesta."

"What?" Siesta hissed. "Why did you just single me out?"

Kirche nudged the former maid ahead. "Why else? Because you're loud," she told her teasingly.

They began to shuffle forward at an abysmally slow rate, following behind Mitay as he retrieved the unscathed bolt from the floor and tossed it forward again. This time there was a firecracker-like snap as it soared away in a random direction, glowing red hot and trailing smoke.

It didn't take them much longer to pick their way through the small cluster of whirligigs. On the other side the walkway almost immediately came to an end where the massive passage intersected with another. Pointing her rife, Montmorency leveled her flashlight into the darkness. The intersecting passage was completely impassible, having already collapsed into a sweeping mountain of rubble.

Away from the deadly anomalies the stalkers dropped down to the roadway, continuing ahead as they weaved through the maze of abandoned vehicles with their weapons ready. They could clearly hear something shuffling around ahead, and Grizzly signaled for a halt as everybody seemed to tense as one. Heading up the group, Grizzly and Mitay kept their rifles raised, while Siesta dropped to a crouch between them.

There was no warning for what happened next. A concussive blast sent a curling cloud of dust sweeping out into view, accompanied by two shrieking snorks that careened through the air and into the darkness. While the greater half of the group had been distracted by such a bizarre sight, the others couldn't help but notice the ugly, squat face that suddenly appeared from around the nose of a listing truck.

It thrust out an arm towards them just as Grizzly and Siesta were hastily shifting their point of aim, and following the gesture was another blast of invisible telekinetic energy that blew an accompanying cloud of dirt and grime right into both Siesta's and Grizzly's faces. They reeled backward, crying out in surprise, while Mitay and Kirche stumbled sidelong into one another.

Almost instantly, Louise, along with Montmorency and Tabitha, had shouldered their respective weapons and opened fire, their bullets shooting sparks as they kicked up curling clouds of dust and smoke. Silence quickly fell, and for a moment nothing stirred. Louise turned away to help Siesta to her feet, but it seemed that Kirche had already beaten her to the punch.

Brushing herself off, Siesta rose to her feet with a grumble. She turned to Louise. "Did you get it?"

Advancing with Kirche at her side, Louise found nothing more than some bullet holes scouring the hood of the truck. There was no sign of the mutant. It had vanished once again.

Approaching from behind, Montmorency heaved out a wavering breath. "That isn't good, is it?"

Torba sidled up next to her. "Not really. Who knows what we just pissed off?"

"Well it started it," Louise pointed out caustically. Taking a knee, she noticed the spatters of blood across the floor. "We were just standing here, weren't we? It started attacking us for no good reason."

"I think you're forgetting something," Grizzly said, looming over her shoulder. "Back when you were crawling under the door. You shot at it first."

Louise sent him a withering look, but it subsided quickly. "That may or may not have slipped my mind for a moment. At any rate – look here. There's blood."

Tabitha was busy checking her Sudaev's magazine as she sidled up. The crooked end of her wrapped staff nudged at Grizzly's shoulder, but he did his best to ignore it. "We hit it," she observed quietly.

Shining her light, Siesta noticed that the mutant had left them a trail to follow. She looked to Grizzly. "What do you think?"

"At least we can figure out where it ran off this time."

Apprehensively, Montmorency swallowed a thick wad of saliva. Grizzly hadn't exactly come out and said that they were setting out to track the mutant down, but Montmorency had the sinking suspicion that no matter what route they chose to follow next it would be the same one the mutant had used to flee.

The winding trail of blood droplets led them down the full length of the passage. Just as everyone had thought, the same pair of snorks that the mutant had sent careening through the air managed to gather themselves, setting their sights upon the stalkers. They both scrambled out from beneath a truck, only to be met with swift demise at the hands of Mitay and Kirche.

Grizzly swept past as Mitay wrenched the Tokarev's magazine free, hearing Louise groan loudly behind him. They had come upon yet another obstacle – a second blast door that was startlingly similar to the one they had faced hardly ten minutes ago. From what Grizzly could see there was no opening this one. Rubble had fallen from the ceiling, crawling up the better half of the door.

With her rifle still pointed to the floor, Siesta motioned for Grizzly to follow her with a flick of her head. There was yet a trail of blood for them to follow, and judging from the direction it was taking them the mutant had hastily crawled across the mountainous rubble in a bid for an escape route. Siesta looked to the wall adjacent the massive door, and was pleased to find an arrangement similar to what they had encountered before.

The door was substantially thicker, however. It had been left completely ajar, and had probably been that way for a long time. The trail of blood led straight to it. Louise advanced with Grizzly and Siesta, feeling oddly nostalgic. The door almost reminded her of the door in the Skadovsk's cargo hold, although the opening mechanism appeared to be a little different.

Right on Siesta's heels, Louise shouldered her rifle and pointed it through the door, shining her light. They were greeted with a long descending staircase. Louise heaved out a breath. "Of course it goes down," she muttered. "It always goes down."

Delving into the uninviting depths below seemed to be the only plausible route through the underpass, because digging out the blast door certainly wasn't an option. Louise only hoped that they would come across the mutant very soon, only this time it would be a crumpled heap on the floor, dead in a pool of its own blood. They descended in pairs, with Siesta and Grizzly predictably heading up the group.

Reaching the bottom took a lot longer than any of them had expected, and they were presented with a cramped room that might have once offered them three choices. The doors appeared to be electronically controlled, and two of them looked to be completely dead and unresponsive. However, the last door, to the right of the staircase, had been left wide open.

Siesta took the initiative and slowly began to peer through the doorway with her rifle shouldered. She stood a full two yards back from the doorway, methodically dividing up what she could see like slices of pie as she carefully cleared the passage beyond. She found herself staring down a rather odd sight – a faded plastic container floating gracefully in the air.

Beyond that, at the edge of what her flashlight was able to illuminate, Siesta could see the outline of what appeared to be a stocky-looking man. It was just like Louise had already described. Her guts clenching, Siesta managed to fire two rounds down the passage, and strangely they both seemed to produce bright gouts of sparks when they hit the mutant's body.

The next thing Siesta knew the plastic container was flying at her face, and Grizzly pulled her backward, but not before it caught her right on the nose. Swearing, Siesta managed to steady herself with Grizzly's help as more random objects soared through the doorway. Among them was an empty wooden crate that splintered once it hit the opposite wall, a few empty beer cans, and even an old boot.

Siesta prodded at her nose, wincing. Maybe she'd get Montmorency to take a look at that later. "So what the hell just hit me?" She snarled.

Bending over, Mitay held up the offending object. "Uh... looks like some old jug of antifreeze." He carelessly tossed it away. "At least it was empty though, right?"

Yeah, thank fucking God, Siesta thought dryly. She couldn't help but notice some of the other things that had suddenly been thrown her way. Amongst the clutter was a fist-sized chunk of concrete that would have surely done some damage. Leaning her back against the wall, she heaved a breath. "Any idea of what we're up against?"

"We were kind of hoping you would know," Torba muttered.

"Well it's definitely been shot at least once," Louise pointed out, keeping watch over the door. If the mutant decided to poke its ugly face inside, it would only meet a torrent of hot lead. "But that doesn't seem to be hindering it at all."

Montmorency sighed nervously. "That's really not good, is it?"

Kirche shot her a look, quirking an eyebrow. "Monmon, in what world could that possibly be a good thing?"

Just as Montmorency was trying to squeak out some manner of comeback, Grizzly turned to regard Siesta. "So you really don't know what this thing is?" He asked tensely.

Siesta shrugged. "It kind of seems like a cross between a poltergeist and a controller to me."

Torba blew out a snort. "Oh, that's just great. A cross between something bad and something even worse."

Unable to suppress the shudder that swam up through her frame, Louise couldn't help but agree with Torba's sentiment. Kirche wasn't far behind, finding it hard to forget what had happened with the controller beneath the ranger station. At least she hadn't been at the brunt of the mutant's psychic prowess.

Meanwhile, Montmorency and Tabitha were fully aware that they had been very lucky thus far. Somehow they hadn't managed to come into contact with such unsavory and dangerous mutants during their time in the Zone, but it was only a matter of time before that luck ran out.

Exercising the utmost caution, Siesta slowly poked out into the passage beyond once again. As far as she could tell the mutant had already fled. "Alright, let's move up through here," she urged. "We'll see where this takes us."

Grizzly nodded. "I still have the schematics for this place," he reminded the group. The main passage had been meant to take them straight to Pripyat, but it obviously wasn't an option now. "Maybe if the muties leave us alone for a few minutes we might be able to set up somewhere and figure out where we're going."

The next passage the group found themselves in was both exceedingly narrow and excruciatingly long. None of them were particularly fond of being caught out in the open in such a confined space, especially when there was no real cover to speak of. Plenty of junk littered the floor, but Louise had serious doubts that he deflated car tire of to her right would be of much help to her, and nor would the rotted cardboard boxes to the right.

At the end of the long passage they all lined up against the wall. There was a wide area beyond the mouth of the narrow corridor, and bizarrely it seemed to be nearly filled to the brim with derelict train cars. From what little Siesta could pick out it appeared that they were at the very back of another long passage, where yet another concrete ceiling had managed to fall in on itself.

Several ancient box cars had been crushed flat as a result, and the remains of a tanker ballooned out from the shattered concrete slabs. Whatever fuel it had once been inside had been reduced to nothing more than a dark blotch splayed across the floor. The box cars and tankers formed neat rows in the gently curving passage, providing plenty of hiding places for any wayward mutants.

Turning back to Grizzly, a cheeky look seemed to cross Siesta's face. "Hey," she whispered to the other stalker. "Why don't you take a look first this time? My nose still kind of hurts."

Grizzly clicked his tongue in way of response. He might have been annoyed, but Siesta deserved a break this time after being smacked in the face. Crouching, Grizzly shuffled towards the end of the corridor, holding his AK-74M ready. Tentatively poking his head out into the open, hardly a second had passed before the plastic bucket came rocketing his way. It glanced off the wall just above his head, missing him by mere inches.

Spitting out a curse, Grizzly reflexively fired at the first sign of movement he saw. Siesta was there almost instantly, leaping to his aid as she leaned out and fired over his head. There was a shape bounding through the darkness, and as the two stalkers lobbed another handful of rounds in that direction sparks flew again.

Whether it was because of their bullets glancing off the box cars, or because of something a little more nefarious, neither of them knew for sure. The lumbering, humanoid shape was gone just as quickly as it had appeared, vanishing behind the nearest row of box cars.

Throwing herself back into cover, Siesta wrenched the half empty magazine out of the G3A3. "Shit! So what? Are our bullets just bouncing off this freaking thing?"

Leaning back into the relative safety of the cramped corridor, Grizzly breathed deep. He found it hard to believe any bullets would bounce off a mutant, but in the Zone anything was possible. Wiping at his brow, he looked up to Siesta, the most experienced stalker of them all. "So... any ideas?"

Siesta seemed to think hard for a moment, before blowing out a snort. "You know, most guys don't ever come to me for advice, even if they know I've been in the Zone longer than they have. I mean, you definitely aren't the first, but you're one of the few. I was gonna say this earlier, but –"

"Earlier?" Grizzly cut in impatiently. "Yeah, you totally should have said it earlier. This really isn't the time to get into a debate over sexism. We're in the middle of something here!"

"I know, I know! I was just saying! Look..."

Kirche heaved out a tired sigh as Grizzly and Siesta took to bickering back and forth, trying to decide what they were going to do next. A worrying thought struck the Germanian then, just as the memories of one particular bullet-resistant mutant fluttered through her mind. Fire hadn't seemed to bother the pseudogiant much either.

Tapping at Louise's arm, Kirche's voice was a little more than a whisper. "Hey... what if this thing is something we can't even kill with bullets?"

Standing just ahead of Louise, Torba looked over his shoulder and shot Kirche a quizzical glance. "Come on, Kirche. What have you ever met that you couldn't kill with bullets?"

Kirche glowered at the stalker. "A couple of things, actually. Have you ever tried shooting a poltergeist?"

"Oh... well, uh... no, I haven't. I haven't seen one before, so..."

"I tried, once," Louise said. The shadow her helmet cast across her face made it all but unreadable most of the time. "It didn't work. All I did was annoy it, and then it threw more things at us. There was this other thing too, back when we were in Zaton. It was basically just some big goo monster. Our bullets went right on through it, and that didn't even seem to bother it."

Torba looked skeptical. "Yeah, right. I've never even heard of something like that."

"She isn't lying. I was there too." Kirche couldn't hold back the shiver that bolted up through her spine. That particular encounter would be forever engrained into her mind, like many others. "Ask Siesta about it if you want."

Hearing her name, Siesta turned away from Grizzly mid-sentence. "I heard my name. Who's talking shit about me this time?"

A smirk drew across Louise's face. "Torba," she said immediately.

"What?" Torba squeaked. "No I wasn't!"

Kirche blew out an amused snort before offering up an explanation. "The goo monster under the substation. Torba doesn't believe us."

"Oh, that thing? Yeah, it was totally real. I asked around about that afterward and nobody even had a clue what I was talking about. Hey Torba – if you don't believe her, then maybe we'll take you there after we check out Pripyat. You'll love it."

Torba awkwardly cleared his throat. "Uh... nah. I'm good."

"For once I agree with him," Louise said. "I am never going back there."

Grinning, Siesta playfully rolled her eyes. "Don't be a spoilsport. Maybe we could even figure out how to deal with it. You know, we didn't try killing it with fire last time." Looking to Kirche, Siesta winked knowingly.

Kirche planted a hand on her hip, glancing away in thought. "You know, that might actually work."

"Hey, we're getting off track here!" Grizzly hissed. "Get back to the plan."

Siesta thought carefully as she peered back out into the wide passage beyond, idly playing at her helmet's chinstrap. It was difficult to get a good count from where she was, but from what she could see there appeared to be four sets of tracks. For some reason the rails nearest to them were suspiciously void of any train cars. Siesta didn't think much of it.

"So there are three rows of these train cars, right? That leaves four lanes between them. There are eight of us, so we'll split up into pairs of two and take a lane each. It'll be easier for us to flush 'em out that way."

It was a novel idea, for sure. They took to the task of deciding who would be paired up with whom, and then put their relatively simple plan into action. The first to dart out into the passage were Torba and Mitay, who immediately veered off to the right to cover the first lane. Kirche and Montmorency were behind them, splitting off into the next lane with their rifles shouldered, while Louise and Tabitha moved ahead to cover the lane past that. Siesta and Grizzly were last, moving past everybody to occupy the final lane between the train cars and the wall.

Louise had her rifle seated snugly into her shoulder, and Tabitha had done the same with her submachine gun. There were times when Louise envied the quiet girl. It wasn't as though the PPS was that much lighter than Louise's own M4A1, but rest of Tabitha's kit was certainly more compact. All of Tabitha's magazines resided in a reasonably sized satchel, while Louise had pouches spread out across her bulky vest.

They wordlessly advanced side-by-side, sweeping their flashlights over every surface. A number of the abandoned boxcars had been left with their doors propped open. Perhaps stalkers had once been here before to try their hand at looting the place. At any rate, it didn't bode well for either of the two girls.

Though she found herself in a slight state of awe, it definitely wasn't the first time Louise had been around trains. Yanov had once been a train station, after all. Louise simply hadn't considered the possibility of using these machines in vast underground passages. The passage they had found themselves in now was just as wide as those above, but the ceiling was significantly lower.

It was obvious that they were in a level below the passage above, and Louise honestly didn't want to know what level of misery they would be subjected to if they happened to get completely lost down here. Her imagination had been running wild for a while now, ever since the elevator had first touched down. She had only given Grizzly's schematics a brief glance, but from what she had seen this place was massive. Louise could only imagine what sort of expansive complex this place actually was.

Briefly, Louise and Tabitha could hear Kirche shout something unintelligible from the other side of the boxcars to their right, and then the thunderous claps of gunfire erupted up through the passage. Louise held a hand out to stall the other girl, and they both ground to a surefooted halt. For a moment, Louise considered getting Kirche on the radio and asking her what exactly she was shooting at.

That was when the mutant barreled out into view, stumbling and clutching at its stomach. It was hurt, that much was obvious. Neither Louise nor Tabitha wasted any time with gawking and immediately opened fire. The mutant simply threw up a hand in way of response, and beyond the burning glare of her muzzle flashes Louise swore she could see her bullets being turned away in a shower of sparks.

The mutant sent out another blast of invisible energy, and Louise and Tabitha both reeled backward as a torrent of dust and grime came spiraling towards them. From beyond the rusted tankers to their left came the deep concussive blasts of Siesta and Grizzly engaging the mutant next.

Silence followed, like a leaden blanket. The radios buzzed to life. "I think we got it!" Siesta said. "Everyone get over here!"

Hacking out a cough, Louise waved the dust away from her face and helped Tabitha to her feet, brushing some of the dirt from the other girl's shoulders. It was only a few moments before the entire group had converged on the slain mutant, and there they were greeted with a rather perturbing sight.

It became apparent to everybody that the mutant had definitely once been human, but for some reason it had lost a significant amount of height, standing shorter than even Louise or Tabitha. In some strange and desperate bid to preserve what little that might have been left of its modesty the mutant had wrapped itself up in an old hooded trench coat, along with bundles of worn rags underneath.

On the mutant's feet were an old pair of boots that were clearly several sizes too small, and oddly enough it appeared that the mutant's bulbous feet had even exploded out through the toes. It gave the impression that those boots had been on those feet before this unfortunate person had become what they were now. It really wouldn't have surprised anybody at this point.

But the mutant's face was the most noteworthy. It was wide and misshapen, with eyes that were far too large and a mouth that hung naturally askew. The mutant's lumpy skin was covered with festering lesions and reddened cysts that looked ready to pop at a moment's notice.

Grizzly leaned over the mutant, grimacing. Its eyes stared blankly towards the ceiling, and just from the splotches of blood alone he could tell that the mutant had actually been hit a startling number of times. There were certainly more wounds than any normal man could take.

"Man... seriously," Grizzly breathed. "What the hell is this freaking thing?"

"Who knows?" Siesta said, shrugging. "Maybe somebody back at the station might know. At least it wasn't a controller, hey?"

Nearby, both Louise and Kirche let out a pair of visible shudders and silently agreed. If they were to ever come across another controller it would be far too soon. They both looked towards Mitay, their curiosity piquing when he wordlessly produced a slim PDA and directed it down towards the mutant's face. A sudden, bright flash followed, and then Mitay held up his PDA victoriously.

Mitay turned the device so the screen faced the others. "What do you think? I should totally become a photographer."

Louise, Kirche, Tabitha, and Montmorency all seemed to lean in as one, their eyes wide and curious. They had all heard that the PDA's could instantly create images of pretty much anything, but none of them had actually seen it for themselves.

Montmorency still had the PDA Grouse had given her kicking around in the bottom of her backpack, but the battery had surely died by now and she had no way to recharge it. Besides, none of them had a clue how to use it. Not even Siesta, who had religiously strayed away from computers during her time in the Zone.

"That's amazing..." Louise cooed. The other girls nodded rapidly. "It's perfect, Mitay. I've never seen anything like it!"

"R-Really?" Mitay looked away, scratching behind his ear. "I mean, I was just making a joke, but..."

Grizzly loudly cleared his throat. "Yeah, Mitay's a real genius. I don't wanna rush you guys, but I'd like to get the hell away from this thing as soon as I can. It freaking reeks."

Laughing, Siesta turned away. "That's one way to put it. Come on, let's get going."

Far ahead, from deep within the darkness of the gently curving passage, there was a spinning beacon light flashing orange at even intervals. It was remarkably similar to the one they had seen in the passage above, after they had managed to get some of the power running. Could that have really affected something all the way down here?

The group of stalkers met with no more resistance in the passage, and for good reason. At the very end they were presented with not only one, but a pair of massive blast doors that appeared to have been sealed tight. The spinning beacon was set between the two doors, flashing away several feet above a control box.

Torba briefly scanned over the arrangement, sighing. "Hey, uh, maybe we should just head back."

Immediately, Siesta shot him a smirk. "What's wrong, Torba? Getting cold feet? Not even Monty's getting cold feet now."

"If anything my feet are freezing, Siesta," Montmorency muttered, but nobody seemed to hear her.

"I told you already," Torba said ruefully. "This place is seriously weirding me out. I mean, what other crazy shit are we gonna come across? Besides, there's no way these giant freaking doors are going to work like the other one."

Grizzly made a show of pointing up to the beacon. "Look – if this thing is working, then maybe there's power going to the door too. It's worth a try. What's the worst that could happen? The door just not working?"

Without waiting for a prompt, Grizzly unsheathed his knife and pried open the switchbox. He found himself presented with two switches. One was presumably for the left door, while the other must have been for the right. Trying the switch on the left first, Grizzly was only met with a distinct hollow click.

Louise rolled her eyes. "That's just brilliant. It doesn't even –"

Then Grizzly tried the other switch, and he nearly leapt backward when the door on the right unceremoniously jolted to life with a piercing hydraulic whine. Stirring up a layer of dust, it slowly began to crank upward into the ceiling. Surprisingly, dim natural light poured in from underneath.

A smirk drawing across his features, Grizzly threw a glance over his shoulder towards Louise. "What was that?" He said, raising his voice over the hydraulics. "I couldn't hear you over the sound of this door opening."

"Shut it, you."

And then hardly a second after Grizzly had finished gloating over his success the door began to emit some rather suspicious grinding noises, and began to stall. The door seemed to come free from its tracks of its own accord, and suddenly fell lopsided with a resounding bang as the lifting mechanism blew out a bright shower of sparks.

Predictably, it was Torba who was the first to begin freaking out. Montmorency followed him not long after, reeling back and shrieking out of pure fright. "Dude!" Torba cried, waving his arms frantically. "Shut it off! Shut it off!"

Fumbling for the switches, Grizzly hastily threw it downward and breathed a sigh of relief when everything came to a halt and went silent. Just as he was sure they were safe, the door decided to then drop several feet, resulting in a deafening crash that was many times louder than the one before. A dense cloud of dust was thrown outward.

As the dust cleared, they could see that the door had been left propped open on one side. There was a dismally small foot-and-a-half gap, enough for them to crawl through one at a time, but that left them to the unpleasant task of crawling through one at a time.

"Well..." Siesta grumbled unhappily. "If there was anything in there that didn't know we were coming, it sure as hell knows now."

Louise moved ahead to inspect the gap. "Oh, great," she moaned. "This again. I'm just going to say this now – there is no way I'm going through first again."

* * *

 _A/N: This definitely should have been posted sooner, but it didn't, because reasons. Also, since I'm sure some of you don't know, the mutant featured in this chapter was the Burer. Look it up on the wiki if you're bored._

 _Speaking of being bored, the reason why this chapter was delayed. I got to rereading some of the older chapters just to familiarize myself after being away from this for so long, and my God, I honestly couldn't believe I wrote that shit. I mean, I'm definitely not the greatest writer by any means, but I like to think I've been improving._

 _So I rewrote Humble Beginnings. All of it. So if you're ever feeling particularly bored, go check it out. Nothing in regard to the plot was changed, so it isn't necessary reading. I just couldn't leave it like that. I'm likely going to give The Life of a Stalker the same treatment as well, so be warned._


	37. Important Update

**Update for Dec 8 2016:** I have some good news and some better news.

The good news is that I found a newer version of the first story arc, _Humble Beginnings_. Unfortunately it is not the final 'Redux' version that was uploaded shortly before _Stalker Zero_ was deleted, but it shows some refinement over the first draft and so I have added the new chapters here.

The better news is that TheannaTheWhite has returned and is working on the story again. You can follow the rewrite's progress on Spacebattles at forums (point) spacebattles (point) com (slash) threads (slash) stalker-zero-znt-s-t-a-l-k-e-r.466223

I plan to take down this copy once TTW has finished reposting all the chapters. In the meantime, do consider going over to SB and giving support and feedback.


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